IOSR Journal of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 25, Issue 10, Series 3 (October. 2020) 40-47 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org DOI: 10.9790/0837-2510034047 www.iosrjournals.org 40 |Page The multicultural poem…makes its own rules: Poetic Dilemmas and Resolutions in the Poetry of Sujata Bhatt Dr Anjana Neira Dev Associate Professor Department of English Gargi College, University of Delhi Siri Fort Road New Delhi 110049 Abstract: Language has always been a dominating issue of contention in the criticism of Indian English poetry. The detractors claim a disjunction between the medium and the message and assert that this makes the latter inauthentic. They see the difficulty as being one of conveying an ethnic ambience in a foreign tongue, since each language carries with it a sense of community, place and of being located in a unique sensibility. The central issue, which this paper will explore, has little or nothing to do with whether the poet should or should not write in English. It can now be taken as said that the language has chosen the poet and there is no value attached to the medium per se, but the value comes from the efficacy of its use in the crafting of the verse and the expression of experience and emotion, in an acquired language. This paper will look at the conflicts expressed by Sujata Bhatt in her efforts to craft a new poetics with reference to four collections of her poems in English – Brunizem, Monkey Shadows, The Stinking Rose and my mother’s way of wearing a sari. Sujata Bhatt is a poet whose personal and poetic journeys across continents and languages give us a fascinating insight into the poetic dilemmas and creative resolutions of these, by Indian English poets. The defining characteristic of her poetry and the variables which determine her poetic expressions are her „modern‟ post independence diasporic existence as a woman and her multilingual poetic identity. Key Words: Sujata Bhatt, Language in Indian English Poetry, Brunizem, Monkey Shadows, The Stinking Rose, my mother’s way of wearing a sari, Identity, multiculturalism, a new poetics --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 26-09-2020 Date of Acceptance: 09-10-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Language has always been a dominating issue of contention in the criticism of Indian English poetry. The detractors claim a disjunction between the medium and the message and assert that this makes the latter inauthentic. They see the difficulty as being one of conveying an ethnic ambience in a foreign tongue, since each language carries with it a sense of community, place and of being located in a unique sensibility. In his seminal introduction to Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets, R. Parthasarathy (1976) explores this issue in detail and writes, “An important characteristic of Indian verse in English in the mid-twentieth century has been its emergence from the mainstream of English literature and its appearance as a part of Indian literature. It has been said that it is Indian in sensibility and content, and English in language. It is rooted in and stems from the Indian environment, and reflects its mores, often ironically.” [1] The second problem is the „idiom‟ used by these poets. In this regard he feels that most of the poets have not been able to find “an adequate and above all, a personal language” and “they have not been able to extend the resources of the Indian language or even Indianize it.” [2] The other poet who has spoken at length about the use of English by Indian writers is A. K. Ramanujan (2001). He says, “A second language clearly has disadvantages for the writer – some of them disastrous….When one writes in a second language not learned in childhood, superimposed on a first, one may effectively cut oneself off from one‟s childhood. A great deal of what we are in life and in writing goes back to that period when language was being formed inside, forming us, forming the world of concepts, the style of our perceptions. Second languages also tend to be learned formally. They are not learned or used in an active community of native speakers, though it may be somewhat different in a few city Indians. ” For himself, the poet feels that the only solution seems to be “to be oneself in the language one uses…to find a voice which is one‟s own, however cracked or small, sick or normal, which follow one‟s twists and turns, falls and rises and stumbles, in one‟s „climb to one‟s proper dark‟ – though the climb may be like a monkey‟s on a greased pole, two feet up and three feet down.” [3] Once the poets have chosen to write in English, the most important task for them seems to be to locate themselves securely in their various Indian contexts. This can be done when they are able to display an ability to