Leaving Yuba City: Poems

By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Book Overview

Like Divakaruni's much-loved and bestselling short story collection Arranged Marriage, this collection of poetry deals with India and the Indian experience in America, from the adventures of going to a convent school in India run by Irish nuns (Growing up in Darjeeling) to the history of the earliest Indian immigrants in the U.S. (Yuba City Poems).

Groups of interlinked poems divided into six sections are peopled by many of the same characters and explore varying themes. Here, Divakaruni is particularly interested in how different art forms can influence and inspire each other. One section, entitled Indian Miniatures, is based on and named after a series of paintings by Francesco Clemente. Another, called Moving Pictures, is based on Indian films, including Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay" and Satyajit Ray's "Ghare Baire." Photographs by Raghubir Singh inspired the section entitled Rajasthani. The trials and tribulations of growing up and immigration are also considered here and, as with all of Divakaruni's writing, these poems deal with the experience of women and their struggle to find identities for themselves.

This collection is touched with the same magic and universal appeal that excited readers of Arranged Marriage. In Leaving Yuba City, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni proves once again her remarkable literary talents.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385488548
• ISBN13: 9780385488549
• Release Date: July 1997
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

I THINK IT'S ONE OF DIVAKARUNI'S STRONGEST WORKS

India-born Chitra Divakaruni is one of my favorites. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature from UC Berkeley and teaches at Foothill College on the San Francisco Peninsula. She's won both Allen Ginsberg and Pushcart Prizes for poetry. This is my favorite of her works, a book of award winning poetry about the experience of Indians coming to the United States. Beautiful, powerful work illuminating a population I knew little about.

Universal, Beautiful

While many of the stories she tells in her poems are clearly set in specific times and places -- a convent school in India run by Irish nuns; Yuba City, California in the years between 1900 and 1940, for example -- the themes of those stories resonate much beyond those locales. Shining like beacons, the moments of joy or happiness in these poems relieve the otherwise unremitting sadness evoked by the painful lengths of abuse, suicide and death, and fear in so many of the poems. For example, the exhiliration of the 19-20 year old narrator escaping the family home for the big city lights of Las Vegas or Los Angeles, in the eponymous poem, is palpable. And although it's clear that she's not just a teenager escaping any home -- she's a teenager escaping a restrictive traditional home with a possible arranged marriage in her future -- the poem easily evoked the same sense of a caged animal smelling freedom in me, someone who never lived in that kind of household. Beautifully written.

Beautiful, haunting poems

I love Divakaruni's writing, and this collection of poetry is no exception. She paints an incredible tapestry with her words. At times the tapestry is painful to look at, but it is always compelling.

Poems - mostly about Indian women - that tell little stories

This is the kind of collection that will turn poetry haters into poetry lovers (or at least poetry likers). Divakaruni tells moving little stories -- rather than addressing abstract ideas -- in these entertaining poems. My favorites were "Woman With Kite" and "The Makers of Chili Paste." Her poems are mostly about Indian women, though I found them universally moving