Leaving Yuba City

July 14, 1997
An abusive father ("the gorilla with iron fingers") and the suicide of a mother who puts the poet to bed and locks her in "so I would not be the first to discover her body hanging from the ceiling" open this third collection from the poet and acclaimed novelist (Mistress of Spices, 1997) as the poet, who was born in India and now lives in northern California, re-examines her origins. A section imagining the lives of the Punjab farmers who arrived in Yuba City, Calif., in 1910, takes on their voices in lush, novelistic prose poems: "I lay in bed and tried to picture her, my bride, in a shiny gold salwar-kamzee, eyes that were black and bright and deep enough to dive in." Divakaruni takes equal inspiration from other artists' interpretations of her native land, drawing on photography, film and most notably the paintings of American artist Francesco Clemente. In a section devoted to his "Indian Miniatures" series, Divakaruni's words enter into Clemente's dreamscapes and blossom into moments of startling visual clarity, as in "Cutting the Sun": "The rays fall around me/ curling a bit, like dried carrot peel. A far sound/ in the air--fire or rain? And when I've cut/ all the way to the center of the sun/ I see flowers, flowers, flowers." Divakaruni's persistent concern with women's experience often deepens as it is arrayed against varying cultural grounds. (Aug.) FYI: Sections of the manuscript won Pushcart and Allen Ginsberg prizes.

July 1, 1997
Ali's poignant, nostalgic evocation of Kashmir is the seventh book of poetry from the director of the writing program at the University of Massachusetts. A previous winner of the Pushcart Prize, Divakaruni shifts her attention seamlessly between life in India and Indian experience in America in this new collection.

October 1, 1997
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.