Leaving Yuba City: Poems [Hardcover]

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997

Like Divakaruni's much-loved and bestselling short story collection Arranged Marriage, this collection of poetry deals with India and the Indian experience in America, from the adventures of going to a convent school in India run by Irish nuns (Growing up in Darjeeling) to the history of the earliest Indian immigrants in the U.S. (Yuba City Poems).

Groups of interlinked poems divided into six sections are peopled by many of the same characters and explore varying themes. Here, Divakaruni is particularly interested in how different art forms can influence and inspire each other. One section, entitled Indian Miniatures, is based on and named after a series of paintings by Francesco Clemente. Another, called Moving Pictures, is based on Indian films, including Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay" and Satyajit Ray's "Ghare Baire." Photographs by Raghubir Singh inspired the section entitled Rajasthani. The trials and tribulations of growing up and immigration are also considered here and, as with all of Divakaruni's writing, these poems deal with the experience of women and their struggle to find identities for themselves.

This collection is touched with the same magic and universal appeal that excited readers of Arranged Marriage. In Leaving Yuba City, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni proves once again her remarkable literary talents.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With beauty and sensitivity, this third collection of poems from Divakaruni, whose recent fiction includes The Mistress of Spices (Anchor, 1997), guides the reader through stories of immigration, changing traditions, and family violence. In "How I Became a Writer," a mother teaches her daughter to write. The tools are cement and chalk, and her mother is bruised, but her protective shadow "velvets the bare ground." From these nurturing scenes on a barren landscape, a writer is born. It is emblematic of Divakaruni's work that she connects personal experience with cultural history in a soft but powerful voice. The section "Yuba City Poems," for instance, offers a glimpse into the hearts of immigrant men who learn that their wives in India may never rejoin them. Though she is part of a current wave of Indian writers, Divakaruni's work bears closer comparison to poets like Sharon Olds. Parts of this work were awarded a Pushcart Prize and an Allen Ginsberg Prize. For all poetry collections.?Ann van Buren, New York Univ. Sch. of Continuing Ed.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Everything Divakaruni touches with her exquisitely sensitive writer's mind--whether it's a memory, or a scene between wife and husband--turns to gold. She demonstrated her mastery of the short story in Arranged Marriages (1995), and of the novel in The Mistress of Spices , and now shows her mastery of poetry in this bittersweet volume, her third collection. Each of her lyrical and haunting poems opens slowly, like a flower, then rapidly picks up speed and intensity until it glows like a meteor as it plunges into the deepest recesses of the heart. Divakaruni begins with devastatingly eloquent evocations of her sorrowful childhood in Darjeeling, then moves on to imaginative and compelling poems inspired by the photographs of Raghubir Singh, paintings by Francesco Clemente, and films by Indian directors, including Satyajit Ray and Mira Nair. In the final section, she dramatizes the circumscribed lives of persecuted Punjab farmers who immigrated early in this century to Yuba City, California. Strongly narrative, shimmeringly detailed, and emotionally acute, Divakaruni's poetry embraces pain and beauty in its affirmation of grace. Donna Seaman --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: San Val (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417710977
• ISBN-13: 978-1417710973
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's acclaimed novels for adults include the bestselling The Mistress of Spices, soon to be a motion picture. Her previous book for young readers, The Conch Bearer, was a Booklist Editors' Choice, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, and is a 2005 Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and lives with her husband and two sons in Sugarland, Texas.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poems - mostly about Indian women - that tell little stories, August 12, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Leaving Yuba City: Poems (Paperback)

This is the kind of collection that will turn poetry haters into poetry lovers (or at least poetry likers). Divakaruni tells moving little stories -- rather than addressing abstract ideas -- in these entertaining poems. My favorites were "Woman With Kite" and "The Makers of Chili Paste." Her poems are mostly about Indian women, though I found them universally moving

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Universal, Beautiful, November 9, 2005

By 

Libby Ingrassia (Houston, Tx) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Leaving Yuba City: Poems (Paperback)

While many of the stories she tells in her poems are clearly set in specific times and places -- a convent school in India run by Irish nuns; Yuba City, California in the years between 1900 and 1940, for example -- the themes of those stories resonate much beyond those locales.

Shining like beacons, the moments of joy or happiness in these poems relieve the otherwise unremitting sadness evoked by the painful lengths of abuse, suicide and death, and fear in so many of the poems. For example, the exhiliration of the 19-20 year old narrator escaping the family home for the big city lights of Las Vegas or Los Angeles, in the eponymous poem, is palpable. And although it's clear that she's not just a teenager escaping any home -- she's a teenager escaping a restrictive traditional home with a possible arranged marriage in her future -- the poem easily evoked the same sense of a caged animal smelling freedom in me, someone who never lived in that kind of household.

Beautifully written.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, haunting poems, February 1, 2004

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So many books, so little time - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Leaving Yuba City: Poems (Paperback)

I love Divakaruni's writing, and this collection of poetry is no exception. She paints an incredible tapestry with her words. At times the tapestry is painful to look at, but it is always compelling.