A god at the door

The illuminating fourth collection from Doshi (Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods) wrestles with the anxiety and existential despair of environmental peril, the pandemic, and the oppression of marginalized peoples. A native of India, Doshi writes with clarity and melodic language of anti-immigrant sentiment in "The Stormtroopers of My Country": "sir you promised us good/ governance but the evidence is mounting of brown/ soldiers massacring brown shops mosques stick// with the pogrom." In "Tigress Hugs Manchurian Fir," a concrete poem in the shape of a tree, she reflects on an award-winning photograph, meditating on the strength required to contend with the 21st century's greatest challenges: "I begin my diaries with Chipko means to hug in Hindi./ And even though I know the history of the ecofeminist/ embrace is fierce, not cute, it helps me understand the gap/ between my life and the denuded hillside." Turning inward in "My Loneliness Is Not the Same as Your Loneliness," she writes: "Singers say they hear the next note/ before they sing it. My loneliness/ is something like that. I know/ not just what it is, but how it will sound." With her finger firmly on the pulse of the zeitgeist, Doshi crafts vivid poems that are a balm for a fraught world. (Nov.)

Many Good & Wonderful Things What more am I to say? Our kind-hearted Sirkar has done everything possible for us to protect us from the cold. We are each provided with two pairs of strong, expensive boots. We have whale oil to rub in our feet, and for food we are provided with live Spanish sheep. In short, the Sirkar has accumulated many good and wonderful things for our use. KALA KHAN to ILTAF HUSSAIN, 27 December, 1917 History too has a hard time remembering the black waters they crossed, the small mountain villages emptied of men. Death was different then. History is always reinventing itself. Say what you will, but clouds have remained more or less the same, and leaving home is still leaving home, whether it's on a jet plane or climbing the steep path behind the house with a roll of bedding on your back. But to die in a faraway place whose name you can't pronounce, for a king who isn't really yours, is a sadness history still hasn't figured out. History has been pushing for republics since Lucius Junius Brutus, but men are hardy, is the point, or bull-headed. And you'd think the glories of lice making mansions in their shirts was a paradise they could do without, that trench-living would make them walk across the front with arms held high, saying, Take me quick, I wish only to enter the realms of God. History tries not to be sentimental, although letters give things away. One fool longed for a flute--the world is burning, but he wants to play. Others were gluttons, mercenaries, spies. The wise asked for opium but write "sweets" or "dainties," they said, otherwise the package might not reach. History needs to forget the dead who cover the earth like heaps of stones, who write: Mother--is my parrot still alive? Mother--do not go wandering madly. Sometimes it feels as though the rain has been falling all your life and the girl you married will tire of tending the cattle. Do not worry. This is war, where the women, like metaphors, are always steadfast and beautiful. In history's version she sits under the peepal tree with your Victoria Cross pinned to her sari. She has been waiting since 1918 and she is waiting still. So let us speak of love the way we always have, by asking, have you eaten, darling? And what price did you get for the goats? And of course, I miss you, but the earth is hard and the sky, distant, and if I had wings I'd fly to you. In Marseille they said we looked like kings. History cannot really say what happens to men at war. So listen: At night I feed on stars. Do not ask about the cold. They have given me whale oil for my feet and someone told me if I carried a piece of raw onion into battle, the bullets would not find me. Excerpted from A God at the Door by Tishani Doshi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.