This book gathers four decades of writing, published in collections from Brunizem in 1988 to Pure Lizard in 2008. It maps the poet’s 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, Bhatt’s work forms a uniquely sustained project of reinvention and rediscovery.

BRUNIZEM (1988)

I The First Disciple

Sujata: The First Disciple of Buddha 

The Peacock 

Iris 

Buffaloes 

Udaylee

The Doors are Always Open
Shérdi

Swami 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 History

A 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 Speaks

Marie Curie to Her Husband 

The Garlic of Truth 

Wanting Agni 

Eurydice Speaks 

Written after Hearing about the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 

3 November 1984 

You Walk into This Room and 

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 Maninagar

The 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’ Wings

Angels’ 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 Further

The 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 Waves

The 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 Dialogues

The 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 Rose

The Stinking Rose 

Ninniku 

Russown

Garlic 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 Blood

An India of the Soul 

A Gujarati Patient Speaks 

Shantih

Genealogy 

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 Riyaj

The Voices 

Consciousness 

Translation: Meditation on a Poem by Hasmukh Pathak 

First Rain 

Water 

Frauenjournal 

AUGATORA (2000)

I Augatora

Looking 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 Narrative

Surus 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 Wind

The Hole in the Wind 

IV The Found Angel: Nine Poems for Ria Eïng

The Found Angel 

Birthday Totem Pole 

The Snail-Ear 

Stingray 

Broom, Wind and Bird: Zeitwanderer 

The Fox and the Angel 

A Black Feather 

Beeswax and Snakeskin Head 

V Ars Poetica

Is 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 

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 Truth

A Hidden Truth 

The Fourth Monkey 

Two Monkeys

The Crow, his Beak, and a Girl 

Nine Poems in Response to Etchings by Paula Rego

Wendy’s Song 

II Telemann’s Frogs

What 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 Walk

The 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 Korea

Finding India in Unexpected Places 

Six Entries from a Witch’s Diary 

Zinzirritta 

Incessant 

Unexpected Blackness 

Sad Walk 

IV Solo Piano

Radishes 

Jane Eyre in the Lab 

Nine Poems in Response to Lithographs by Paula Rego

Four Poems in Response to Paintings by Paula Rego

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 Silence

Devibahen 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