નાની હતી ત્યારે બા સાથે બજારમાં ખરીદી કરવા જતી. એક વાર બાની નજર ચૂકવી રમકડાંની દુકાનમાં ખોવાઈ ગઈ. બા મને બધે શોધી વળ્યાં અને આજુબાજુ પૂછ્યું કે કોઈએ મને જોઈ હતી. તરત ન જડી ત્યારે ફૂટપાથ પર બેઠેલા જોષી અને એના પિંજરાની ભવિષ્ય ભાખતી ચકલી પાસે બાના પગ અટક્યા હતા. આ છે આ પુસ્તકના મુખપૃષ્ઠની કથા. આગળ શું થાય છે એ માટે તો કાવ્ય જ વાંચવું પડશે. કદાચ બીજાં કાવ્યો પણ ગમે તો કહેવાય નહીં.

– પન્ના નાયક

(અમેરિકામાં આ પુસ્તક ખરીદવા અહીં ક્લિક કરો)

About the book

Poetry in the Americas: A Poet’s Voice from India in the United States of America.

In an interview, Panna Naik writes:

“… while my life in the United States seemed to be full of activity, my life within was terribly lonely. When I met and heard Anne Sexton…the sincerity and transparency in her poems did magic to my inner world. She inspired me to write about myself and give a voice to women around me.”

As she interweaves her experiences and the experiences of women around her in India and the USA, Panna Naik uses imagery and symbols from the world of nature that she remembers from India as well as the imagery and symbols from the world of nature, which she encounters in the United States. Panna’s poetic expressions of nature as well as of human experiences from both worlds work extremely well within the intellectual and emotional poetic traditions of both worlds, of India and of the United States of America.

In the classical and still very much alive literary traditions of India that Panna Naik carries to the Americas, the creation as well as the reception and appreciation of the arts is explicitly equated with the cooking, the enjoyment and the life-giving nourishment of perfectly prepared food. It is within this framework of art, of poetry as created, crafted not only for entertainment and education but more importantly as nourishment that Panna Naik offers us her poetry which entertains us, educates us and sustains us.

—Roshni Rustomji-Kerns, Professor Emerita of India Studies and the Hutchins School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Sonoma State University, CA.