Train to Agra

by Khanna, Vandana

• ISBN13: 9780809324057
• ISBN10: 0809324059
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-01
• Publisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr

Summary

Calling upon two cultures, Vandana Khanna'sTrain to Agrameditates on the effects of displacement and expatriation on the construction of a young Indian American woman's identity. The physical journeys undertaken by the speaker reflect her inner journey from immigrant child to Indian American woman, struggling to find her place between India and America, Krishna and Jesus, samosas and hamburgers. The speaker constantly tries to recapture visions, smells, and sounds of her childhood and her travels, but cannot do so without imagination. Her memory fails her, so through metaphor she invents her past as it should have been. Traveling through her reflections on childhood, fate, faith, death, and belonging, she comes to accept her reality as a construct of lived memories and wished-for fantasies.

Author Biography

Vandana Khanna was born in New Delhi, India, and has lived most of her life in the United States. She attended the University of Virginia and received her M.F.A. from Indiana University in Bloomington, where she was a recipient of the Yellen Fellowship in poetry. Her poems have appeared in Callaloo, Crazyhorse, Hayden's Ferry Review, and the Crab Orchard Review, among others. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Train to Agra	1	(4)
ONE
Spell	5	(1)
Blackwater Fever	6	(1)
Thread	7	(3)
Eyes	10	(1)
Dun	11	(1)
Stardust	12	(2)
On the Edge of Delhi	14	(1)
The India of Postcards	15	(4)
TWO
Against Vallejo	19	(2)
Two Women	21	(1)
The Nook	22	(1)
Against Tu Fu	23	(1)
Hence, Monsoon	24	(1)
Domes	25	(1)
Alignment	26	(1)
The Palm Reader	27	(1)
Twentieth-Century Sita	28	(1)
Aurora	29	(2)
Denali	31	(1)
4th Street Cemetery	32	(3)
THREE
Screens	35	(2)
Blue Madonna	37	(1)
Lost	38	(1)
Plums	39	(1)
Elephant God	40	(1)
The Taming	41	(1)
Bowl	42	(1)
Bread	43	(1)
A Miracle in Blue Jeans	44	(2)
You Who Have Taken the Name Clare	46	(1)
Hunger	47	(1)
When My Father Didn't Work	48	(1)
Hair	49	(2)
Dot Head	51	(1)
Echo	52	(2)
Evening Prayer	54