Kamala Das

Poems Biography

Who is Kamala Das

Kamala Surayya (born Kamala; 31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009), popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian English poet as well as a leading Malayalam author from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics among others. She was born in a Hindu Nair (Nalapat) family having royal ancestry. She converted to conservative Islam on December 11, 1999, at the age of 65 and assumed the name Kamala Surayya.

Her open and honest treatment of female sexuali...
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Kamala Das Poems

  • My Grandmother's House
    There is a house now far away where once
    I received love....... That woman died,
    The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
    Among books, I was then too young...
  • An Introduction
    I don't know politics but I know the names
    Of those in power, and can repeat them like
    Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
    I amIndian, very brown, born inMalabar,...
  • Annette
    Annette,
    At the dresser.
    Pale fingers over mirror-fields
    Reaping...
  • Punishment In Kindergarten
    Today the world is a little more my own.
    No need to remember the pain
    A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
    Words at me like pots and pans, to drain...
  • Winter
    It smelt of new rains and of tender
    Shoots of plants- and its warmth was the warmth
    Of earth groping for roots... even my
    Soul, I thought, must send its roots somewhere...
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Top 10 most used topics by Kamala Das

I Love You 15 Love 15 Body 7 Mind 7 Woman 7 Summer 7 Hair 7 Sun 6 Lonely 5 Soul 5


Kamala Das Quotes

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Tanish: Major work for kamala das
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... A: Inspiring woman
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Poem of the day

Carl Sandburg Poem
House
 by Carl Sandburg

TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe.
Two Swede boys go upstairs and see Joe. His wife is dead, his only son is dead, and his two daughters in Missouri and Texas don't want him around.
The boys and Uncle Joe crack walnuts with a hammer on the bottom of a flatiron while the January wind howls and the zero air weaves laces on the window glass.
Joe tells the Swede boys all about Chickamauga and Chattanooga, how the Union soldiers crept in rain somewhere a dark night and ran forward and killed many Rebels, took flags, held a hill, and won a victory told about in the histories in school.
Joe takes a piece of carpenter's chalk, draws lines on the floor and piles stove wood to show where six regiments were slaughtered climbing a slope.
'Here they went' and 'Here they went,' says Joe, and the January wind howls and the zero air weaves laces on the window glass.
The two Swede boys go downstairs with a big blur of guns, men, and hills in their heads. They eat herring and potatoes and tell the family war is a wonder and soldiers are a wonder.
One breaks out with a cry at supper: I wish we had a war now and I could be a soldier.
...
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