This book gathers four decades of writing, published in collections from Brunizem in 1988 to Pure Lizard in 2008. It maps the poets trajectory, following her exile from her homeland, India, and her mother tongue, Gujarati, to the landscapes and languages of the USA and then Europe. Urgent, compassionate and inventive, Bhatts work forms a uniquely sustained project of reinvention and rediscovery.

Table of Contents:
BRUNIZEM (1988)
I The First DiscipleSujata: The First Disciple of Buddha The Peacock Iris Buffaloes UdayleeThe Doors are Always Open
ShérdiSwami Anand For Nanabhai Bhatt Nachiketa Kalika For My Grandmother Muliebrity Reincarnation Lizards The First Meeting Something for Plato The Difference between Being and Becoming
II A Different HistoryA Different History She Finds Her Place The Kama Sutra Retold Menu Parvati Looking Through a French Photographer’s Portrayal of Rajasthan with Extensive Use of Orange Filters Oranges and Lemons The Women of Leh are such – Paper and Glass Another Act for the Lübecker Totentanz What Is Worth Knowing? Another Day in Iowa City Living with Trains Baltimore The Woodcut The Puppets Pink Shrimps and Guesses Looking Over What I Have Done Hey, Search for My Tongue
III Eurydice SpeaksMarie Curie to Her Husband The Garlic of Truth Wanting Agni Eurydice Speaks Mein lieber Schwan Written after Hearing about the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 3 November 1984 You Walk into This Room and Mappelmus The Undertow At the Marketplace Metamorphoses II: A Dream Saturday Night on Keswick Road The Writer Sad Songs with Henna Leaves Tail Go to Ahmedabad To My Muse Brunizem Well, Well, Well,
MONKEY SHADOWS (1991)
I The Way to ManinagarThe Langur Coloured Night The Stare Maninagar Days The Daily Offering The Glassy Green and Maroon Ajwali Ba Nanabhai Bhatt in Prison Kankaria Lake A Different Way to Dance What Happened to the Elephant? Red August Understanding the Ramayana Devibahen Pathak
II Angels’ WingsAngels’ Wings Mozartstrasse 18 Yellow October Wine from Bordeaux A Story for Pearse Groningen: Saturday Market on a Very Sunny Day Counting Sheep White Blood Cells The Mad Woman in the Attic The Fish Hat The Echoes in Poona Walking Across the Brooklyn Bridge, July 1990
III Until Our Bones Prevent Us from Going FurtherThe Sea at Night Another Portrait of Bartolo Rooms by the Sea Franz Marc’s Blaue Fohlen Sunlight in a Cafeteria Portrait of a Double Portrait White Asparagus Distances The Rooster in Conil Just White Chips Beyond Edinburgh Love in a Bathtub Belfast, November 1987 29 April 1989 The Need to Recall the Journey At the Flower Market Sinking into the Solstice Until Our Bones Prevent Us from Going Further What Does One Write When the World Starts to Disappear?
THE STINKING ROSE (1995)
I Freak WavesThe One Who Goes Away We are Adrift Although She’s a Small Woman Point No Point ‘Man Swept out to Sea as Huge Wave Hit Rock’ When the Dead Feel Lonely How Far East is it Still East? The Three Sisters The Wild Woman of the Forest Polish-German Woodcarver Visits Vancouver Island Victor, Whiskey, Juliet, 2 2 3 Salt Spring Island Your Sorrow
II New World DialoguesThe Light Teased Me Cow’s Skull – Red, White and Blue Skinny-dipping in History Parrots What Does the Flower of Life Say, Frida Kahlo? Chutney Nothing is Black, Really Nothing The Blue Snake Who Loves Water Pelvis with Moon It Has Come to This
III The Stinking RoseThe Stinking Rose Ninniku RussownGarlic in War and Peace Mars Owns this Herb A Touch of Coriander Bear’s Garlic at Nevern Frightened Bees Ther is No Rose of Swych Virtu
The Worm A Poem in Three Voices A Brahmin Wants the Cows to Eat Lots of Garlic If You Named Your Daughter Garlic Instead of Lily or Rose Self-Portrait with Garlic Allium Moly and Odysseus Instructions to the Artist A First Draft from the Artist The Man in the Artist’s First Draft Speaks The Good Farmer A Wintry July in Bremen Rosehips in August If a Ghazal were like Garlic Garlic and Sapphires in the Mud The Pharaoh Speaks It Has Not Rained for Months
IV Old World BloodAn India of the Soul A Gujarati Patient Speaks ShantihGenealogy Black Swans for Swantje One of the Wurst-Eaters on the Day After Good Friday Fate Orpheus Confesses to Eurydice Jealousy Kaspar Hauser Dreams of Horses Ophelia in Defence of the Queen Monsoon with Vector Anophelines More Fears about the Moon Lizard, Iguana, Chameleon, Salamander Sharda
V RiyajThe Voices Consciousness Translation: Meditation on a Poem by Hasmukh Pathak First Rain Sruti Water Frauenjournal
AUGATORA (2000)
I AugatoraLooking Up Squirrels The Dream Augatora Durban: A Visit to the Botanical Gardens A Memory from Marathi The Virologist Barcelona Gazpacho After Dinner in Conil Your Postcards A Swimmer in New England Speaks The Snake Catcher Speaks
II History is a Broken NarrativeSurus to Hannibal Partition Diabetes Mellitus The Pope, Tito and the WHO After the Earthquake Voice of the Unwanted Girl History is a Broken Narrative New Orleans Revisited The Shirodkar Suture A Room in Amsterdam Honeymoon Jerusalem The Woman they call Abuela Łódź Green Amber in Riga Language Jane to Tarzan
III The Hole in the WindThe Hole in the Wind
IV The Found Angel: Nine Poems for Ria EïngThe Found Angel Birthday Totem Pole The Snail-Ear Stingray Vogelfrau Broom, Wind and Bird: Zeitwanderer The Fox and the Angel A Black Feather Beeswax and Snakeskin Head
V Ars PoeticaIs it a Voice? Skintight with Ice The Mammoth Bone My Mother’s Way of Wearing a Sari A Poem Consisting Entirely of Introductions This Room is Part of the NYC Subway System Montauk Garden with Stones and Water Equilibrium A Detail from the Chandogya Upanishad Poem for a Reader who was Born Blind The Circle The Multicultural Poem Meeting the Artist in Durban Ars Poetica
A COLOUR FOR SOLITUDE (2002)Self-Portrait as Aubade, 1897 Self-Portrait Done with Red Chalk, 1897 Self-Portrait as My Sister, 1897 Self-Portrait with Coppery Red Hair, 1897/98 Self-Portrait in Front of Window Offering a View of Parisian Houses, 1900 Two Girls, Two Sisters, PB to CW, 1900 Black Sails, PB to RMR, September 1900 A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight, 1901 Your Weyerberg Gaze, CW to RMR, 1901 No Road Leads to This, CW to RMR, 1901 The Washing on the Line, 1901 Two Girls in a Landscape, 1901 Icicles Hang from the Reeds of Our Roof, CW to PB, February 1902 You Kissed My Eyelids, PB to RMR, March 1902 Elsbeth, PB to CW, July 1902 Self-Portrait with Scratches, 1903 Self-Portrait with Blossoming Trees, 1903 Two Girls: The Blind Sister, 1903 Self-Portrait in Front of a Landscape with Trees, 1903 Two Girls in Profile in a Landscape, charcoal, 1903/04 In Her Green Dress, She is, 1905 Self-Portrait with Your Jaw Set, 1905 You are the Rose, CW to RMR, 1905 A Red Rose in November, PB to CW, 1905 Don’t Look at Me like That, CW to PB, 1905 Runic, PB to CW, 1905 Self-Portrait with an Oversized Hat and a Red Rose in the Right Hand, 1905 Self-Portrait with a Necklace of White Beads, 1906 Self-Portrait with a Wreath of Red Flowers in Your Hair, 1906 A Colour for Solitude, PB to RMR, 1906 Self-Portrait on My Fifth Wedding Anniversary, 25-5-06 Self-Portrait as a Nude Torso with an Amber Necklace, 1906 Self-Portrait as Anonymous, 1906 You Spoke of Italy, PB to RMR, 1906 Is there More Truth in a Photograph?, PB to her sister HB, 1906 Self-Portrait as a Life-Sized Nude, 1906 Self-Portrait as a Standing Nude with a Hat, 1906 Self-Portrait Wearing a Blue and White Striped White Dress, 1906 Self-Portrait with Yellowish Green, 1906 Two Girls: One Sitting in a White Shirt, the Other, a Standing Nude, 1906 Two Girls: Nude, One Standing, the Other Kneeling in Front of Red Poppies, 1906 Two Girls with their Arms Across their Shoulders, 1906 Self-Portrait on a Hot Day in Paris, 1906 Self-Portrait as a Mask, 1906 Self-Portrait with a Hat and Veil, 1906 Self-Portrait, Frontal, with a Flower in the Right Hand, 1906/7 A White Horse Grazing in Moonlight, a retrospective view of 1901, PB to OM Otto with a Pipe, PB to OM, 1906/07 Self-Portrait with a Lemon, 1906/07 Self-Portrait with a Sprig of Camellia Leaves, 1906/07 And What Will Death Do?, 1906/07 Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in the Left Hand, PB to CW, 1907 Who has Just Died? CW to PB, 1908 Through the Blackness, CW to PB, 1915 21 November 1916, CW to PB The Room Itself is Dying, CW to RMR, circa 1921 Ruth’s Wish, CW to RMR, 1936 16 April 1945, CW to PB Was it the Blue Irises?Clara’s Voice Lines Written in Venice Fischerhude, 2001 Worpswede, 2001
PURE LIZARD (2008)
I A Hidden TruthA Hidden Truth The Fourth Monkey Two MonkeysThe Crow, his Beak, and a Girl Nine Poems in Response to Etchings by Paula RegoThe Crow’s House The Crow and his Cat A Tube of Paint The Night Crow Sewing on the Shadow Flying Children Wendy and the Lost Boys Mermaid Drowning Wendy Wendy’s Song
II Telemann’s FrogsWhat is Exotic? Pure Lizard Storm Bhagavati Coffee Good Omens Only the Blackest Stones Parvati Temple, Poona Whenever I Return Telemann’s Frogs Buddha’s Lost Mother Gale Force Winds Living with Stones Piece Caprice Whose Ghost Is This? Hyacinths Jasmine Tastes Bitter Suji Monkey Woman Lightning In the End Korean Angel kikku no sekku
III Sad WalkThe Imagination She Slipped Through the Suez Canal The Light that Unfetters the Soul And look: the olives ripen, the lizards stretch Three Poems from South KoreaBamboo in Gyeongju King Munmu Because of the Moon Finding India in Unexpected Places Six Entries from a Witch’s Diary Zinzirritta Incessant Unexpected Blackness Sad Walk
IV Solo PianoRadishes Jane Eyre in the Lab Nine Poems in Response to Lithographs by Paula RegoGirl Reading at Window Loving Bewick Crumpled Jane in a Chair with Monkey Jane’s Back Bertha BitingThe Keeper Come to Me Four Poems in Response to Paintings by Paula RegoThe Cadet and his Sister The Maids The Soldier’s Daughter The Policeman’s Daughter Portrait of a Young Man in his Study, Venice, 1528 The Old Man Who is Not Felice Beato Enters Sikander Bagh The Smell of Lilacs 328 Mickle Boulevard, Camden, New Jersey Abstractions Circling Over Medellín A House of SilenceDevibahen and Harilal in Pennsylvania Green Acorns He Farms for Beauty Phytoremediation Do Not Use the Word ‘Erosion’ Lightly Solo Piano: After Listening to Philip Glass
Notes Index of Titles Index of First Lines