THE PEACOCK

Done By:-Wafa Noufal

8thC

About The Author• Sujata Bhatt was born in Ahmadabad, India, in 1956.

• She grew up in Pune, India, and in the United States. She received her MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, and now lives in Germany with her husband and daughter. She is the recipient of various awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia) and the Cholmondeley Award.

• Her long poem, 'Search for My Tongue', was choreographed by Daksha Sheth and performed in nine cities in England and Scotland, under the title, 'Tongues Untied' by the UK based South Asian Dance Youth Company, in 1994. 'Search For My Tongue' was presented under the same title by the Daksha Sheth Dance Company at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 1998.

• She has published six collection of poems, including Monkey Shadows(1991) and Augatora (2000), both Poetry Book Society Recommendations; and A Color for Solitude (2002), which deals exclusively with the life and work of the German painter, Paula Modersohn-Becker. Her latest collection, Pure Lizard, was published in 2008 and was shortlisted for the 2008 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year).

• She has translated Gujarati poetry into English for the Penguin Anthology of Contemporary Indian Women's Poetry, and has also translated poems by Günter Grass and Günter Kunert. Her translation from the German, Mickle Makes Muckle: poems, mini plays & short prose by Michael Augustin, was published in 2007.

Sujata Bhatt

Poetry Collections

• 1988 Brunizem Carcanet Press• 1991 Monkey Shadows Carcanet Press• 1995 The Stinking Rose Carcanet Press• 1997 Point No Point. Carcanet Press• 2000: Augatora. Carcanet Press• 2002: The Colour of Solitude (Second edition).

Carcanet Press• 2008: Pure Lizard. Carcanet Press

Awards

• 1988 Commonwealth poetry prize (Asia) Brunizem

• 1988 Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize Brunizem• 1991 Poetry Book Society

Recommendation Monkey Shadows• 1991 Cholmondeley Award• 2000 Poetry Book Society

Recommendation Aguatora• 2000 Tratti Poetry Prize

The PeacockHis loud sharp call

seems to come from nowhere.Then, a flash of turquoise

in the pipal treeThe slender neck arched away from you

as he descends,and as he darts away, a glimpse

of the very end of his tail.I was told

that you have to sit in the verandaAnd read a book,

preferably one of your favoriteswith great concentration..

The moment you begin to liveinside the book

A blue shadow will fall over you.The wind will change direction,

The steady hum of beesIn the bushes nearby

will stop.The cat will awaken and stretch.

Something has broken your attention;And if you look up in time

You might see the peacock turning away as he gathershis tail

To shut those dark glowing eyes,Violet fringed with golden amber.

It is the tail that has to blinkFor eyes that are always open.

Summary

Here she appreciates the royal, fascinating, mind blowing, precious, magnificent , gorgeous things of a peacock. basically a peacock is referred as India's animal so all that she appreciates is of India. the word mentioned of "then, a flash of turquoise in the pi pal tree" it means of a color that is bluish- green, named after a precious stone. so the whole poem is talking about her country INDIA. and she illustrates in her own words that if you are reading an interesting book and some thing just irritates like of a wind, a steady hum of bees, or the bushes near nearby, or the cat that stretches " will break free your attention on what you were reading is to take a view of the peacock.