Poetry
Tandava
Sudesh Mishra · 1992
Synopsis
Twenty-one poems, from “Irony” to “Self-Reflection”, placed under an epigraph from Auden and dedicated to Syd Harrex; several are set in Australia. The poet bends forms inherited from the colonial school to stories that are not colonial: “Feejee” answers Yeats's Crazy Jane poems, “Black Swans in Ballarat” takes up the same Yeats's swans and gives them a political reach, and “Loving Song of R.J. Tangaya” parodies Eliot.
Context
Published in Melbourne by Meanjin Press, in 1992 according to AustLit, in 1991 according to the Contemporary Poets entry, the collection follows Rahu, the author's first book. Susan M. Schultz sees in this poetry the imprint of the great modernists and of a British colonial education, which Mishra, like Derek Walcott, works both with and against; in her view his work becomes more ironic and less lyrical over time, and several poems speak of the invisibility of a non-white poet from a tropical island.
Who it is for
A slim collection of some thirty pages, nourished by modernist reading; no French translation has been noted.
Prizes and reception
Mishra says he bends traditional forms from within in order to defy the colonial legacy they carry.