An Introduction Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCDEFGHDIHJKLMINHO PQIRHCIQSESSMTUIVNHC CHQWXYSZHEOMQSHA2ICQ VM| I don't know politics but I know the names | A |
| Of those in power and can repeat them like | B |
| Days of week or names of months beginning with Nehru | C |
| I amIndian very brown born inMalabar | C |
| I speak three languages write in | D |
| Two dream in one | E |
| Don't write in English they said English is | F |
| Not your mother tongue Why not leave | G |
| Me alone critics friends visiting cousins | H |
| Every one of you Why not let me speak in | D |
| Any language I like The language I speak | I |
| Becomes mine its distortions its queernesses | H |
| All mine mine alone | J |
| It is half English halfIndian funny perhaps but it is honest | K |
| It is as human as I am human don't | L |
| You see It voices my joys my longings my | M |
| Hopes and it is useful to me as cawing | I |
| Is to crows or roaring to the lions it | N |
| Is human speech the speech of the mind that is | H |
| Here and not there a mind that sees and hears and | O |
| Is aware Not the deaf blind speech | P |
| Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the | Q |
| Incoherent mutterings of the blazing | I |
| Funeral pyre I was child and later they | R |
| Told me I grew for I became tall my limbs | H |
| Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair | C |
| WhenI asked for love not knowing what else to ask | I |
| For he drew a youth of sixteen into the | Q |
| Bedroom and closed the door He did not beat me | S |
| But my sad woman body felt so beaten | E |
| The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me | S |
| I shrank Pitifully | S |
| Then I wore a shirt and my | M |
| Brother's trousers cut my hair short and ignored | T |
| My womanliness Dress in sarees be girl | U |
| Be wife they said Be embroiderer be cook | I |
| Be a quarreller with servants Fit in Oh | V |
| Belong cried the categorizers Don't sit | N |
| On walls or peep in through our lace draped windows | H |
| Be Amy or be Kamala Or better | C |
| Still be Madhavikutty It is time to | C |
| Choose a name a role Don't play pretending games | H |
| Don't play at schizophrenia or be a | Q |
| Nympho Don't cry embarrassingly loud when | W |
| Jilted in love I met a man loved him Call | X |
| Him not by any name he is every man | Y |
| Who wants a woman just as I am every | S |
| Woman who seeks love In him the hungry haste | Z |
| Of rivers in me the oceans' tireless | H |
| Waiting Who are you I ask each and everyone | E |
| The answer is it is I Anywhere and | O |
| Everywhere I see the one who calls himself I | M |
| In this world he is tightly packed like the | Q |
| Sword in its sheath It is I who drink lonely | S |
| Drinks at twelve midnight in hotels of strange towns | H |
| It is I who laugh it is I who make love | A2 |
| And then feel shame it is I who lie dying | I |
| With a rattle in my throat I am sinner | C |
| I am saint I am the beloved and the | Q |
| Betrayed I have no joys that are not yours no | V |
| Aches which are not yours I too call myself I | M |
Kamala Das
(10)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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About An Introduction
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