Response to Vandana Khanna

What exactly is the significance of places and nature within a poem? What does it do for the piece as a whole? Does it give the piece much more meaning or does it hinder the message it is trying to convey? As I was reading the poets for the week, these were the questions that I pondered. Just like in a piece of fiction or non-fiction I think it is necessary to reveal the setting within poetry, whether it is subtle or not. I think it is necessary because the setting can tell you a lot about what is going on in the speaker’s life, and how he or she see the world around them. It also reveals the speakers perception in terms of how he or she sees his or herself in this environment (whether if he or she is torn, happy or simply feels like an outsider).

I truly enjoyed Vandana Khanna’s poetry; there was something about her pieces that put me in awe. I think maybe it was the conversational tone that came out of her work. Perhaps, my favorite piece was “The India of Postcards.” She did a lot with imagery in this piece to make the reader feel as if he or she was there. However, the speaker never allows the reader to feel as if he or she is the person speaking. In this piece the poet writes about the speakers experience in India by using the five senses: smell, touch, vision, hearing, and feeling. All of which in my opinion is important in poetry, or any form of writing. In a way the speaker is discussing how he or she feels as a tourist in India, the speaker states:

We were high on heat and medicine. Anything
To protect our ourselves from disease, “And there
were so many—cholera, malaria, meningitis.
All sounding soft and beautiful on our lips, full of vowels and danger.
The only thing we wanted we couldn’t have:
Water—unbottled, un-boiled—pure, sweet,
American-tasting water.

My favorite line is “And there were so many—cholera, malaria, meningitis. All sounding soft and beautiful on our lips, full of vowels and danger.” I like it because it reminds of people (who I know) who have gone out of the states and into a foreign country and fear catching a disease. What I also like about this line is the fact that she says the diseases when spoken have a nice ring to it, but is full of danger. It also made me wonder the connection that the speaker has with India and his or her image of if it. It seems to almost seems to be as if the speaker only things of this negatively, but feels otherwise. Do you know what I mean? I am not too sure what she could mean by this but I love how sounds. I actually have no clue whatsoever in terms of the poem is about, I love how it reads. I think it is about a person (tourist) struggling with finding solace in a country where he or she may or may not get sick as a result of the negative thoughts. But I could be wrong

As the poem progresses we see that the speaker wants to take a piece home with her, like a “pyramid, or temple” something that is impossible to pick up and take. This shows that the speaker wanted a memory of something that represents India –something that would remind him or her of the countries beauty.
In terms of answering the questions I asked in the first paragraph I think describing the setting is a must given that it gives the reader much more background of the experience or situation of the reader. I hope I did not take this out of context. :0

-Lizzie Chaidez