Illiterate Heart (Triquarterly Books) [Paperback]

Meena Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Series: Triquarterly Books | Publication Date: April 17, 2002

Illiterate Heart is an intensely autobiographical book of poems exploring both the foreign and the familiar.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"When I read these poems even silently, I hear them. The language is so clear, the telling so clean, the feeling so deep. This is a big collection, generous, and beautiful. A happiness at its darkest to read." --Grace Paley

"Meena Alexander's lines are like 'fire in an old man's sleeve, / coiled rosebuds struck from a branch. / Our earthly world slit open.' These are luminous poems."
--Arthur Sze, author of The Redshifting Web

From the Back Cover

Meena Alexander's poetry emerges as a consciousness moving between the worlds of memory and the present, enhanced by multiple languages. Her experience of exile is translated into the intimate exploration of her connections to both India and America. In one poem the thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi visits with her while she speaks on the phone in her New York apartment, and in another she evokes fellow-poet Allen Ginsberg in the India she herself has left behind. Drawing on the fascinating images and languages of her dual life, Alexander deftly weaves together contradictory geographies, thoughts, and feelings.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 106 pages
• Publisher: Triquarterly; 1 edition (April 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810151189
• ISBN-13: 978-0810151185
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #40 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Asian American
  • #43 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Indian

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