Everyday Flowers

If youve wondered how it must feel to be a stranger in a strange land Kalpana Asok tells you in these gentle poems. Gentle but with a hint of irony as when in the voice of a new arrival an Indian woman introduces herself to a new American neighbor and then in an almost footnoted last line that lets us know she was never invited into the house: Dear Ethel Thank you for the lemonadeand the visits on your porch. The feeling of dislocation surfaces sharply in another when she asks My mothers in my mirror/is she walled in/am I locked out . . . . Vivid images greet us throughout as she explores wide-eyed this new world where a chatty American wears a different baseball cap every day and is full of information. The gentle voice rises in indignation in strong tightly crafted poems about social injustice as in I Cant Breathe with a first stanza ending in Yes metoo. Remembering or perhaps dreaming she gives us a Tiger Preserve with a Lurching blind-drunk female /in the middle of the day/Slapping holy ground . . . . The gentle voice returns in this lovely debut collection ending with a lullaby Tenderly in hummed syllables: Umhmm --Irene Willishmmm hmm hmm . . . . Read it with delight and continued discovery.