Samir Shukla
Disorder
Author: Vanesha Pravin
(University of Chicago Press)
Vanesha Pravin’s book “Disorder” is a poetry collection that taps into family history, looks at uprooting via migration and examines contemporary cultural crossroads, all written in spare, yet evocative poems. Her words breathe life into the characters of a family, her family. The poems have universality while many are rooted in the inimitable Indian ethos. She connects the contemporary with the history of her ancestors. In certain poems, like “First Wife,” entire stories are succinctly told. In the piece and another accompanying poem, her grandmother, unable to have children, finds a second wife for her husband, a show of love to continue the bloodline. Pravin recounts this history in minimal words while unfolding the feelings and conditions of family members in vivid imagery. She writes of family seeking better lives to migrate to while looking at a map for new lands. One imagines countless families struggling with the possibilities and wonder of shifting to new lands. “Disorder” presents details of lives in sparse, strong homage. I generally find poetry confounding. I enjoy reading it, but so much of it is, well, fluffy rhyming. A collection like “Disorder” brings music and grounding to the art of poetry. Pravin delivers a fluid in this small but substantial collection. I want to read more from Pravin; another book of her poems in the near future perhaps. She toils in academia and currently teaches at University of California, Merced.
