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At the Time of Partition
This book-length poem is set at the time of the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 when thousands of people were killed in civil unrest and millions displaced, with families later split between the two countries. Inspired by family history, Moniza Alvi weaves a deeply personal story of fortitude and courage, as well as of tragic loss, in this powerful work in 20 parts. At the Time of Partition is Moniza Alvi's first new poetry book since her T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted collection Europa, published in 2008 at the same time as Split World: Poems 1990-2005.
Split World
'Split World' contains poems from five collections by Moniza Alvi, who left Pakistan to live in England when she was a baby. She draws on real and imagined homelands and concerns herself with divisions between East and West, between inner and outer worlds, imagination and reality, the physical and the spiritual.
The Country at My Shoulder
This is Moniza Alvi's first full-length poetry collection, and includes a number of poems which won the 1991 Poetry Business Competition. At the heart of the collection is a group of poems called "Presents from Pakistan," which explores the gathering significance to the poet of her birthplace. Many people today have a "country at their shoulder"--a homeland left behind, or a birthplace seldom, perhaps never, visited, but nevertheless a vital part of their imaginary and real lives. Highlighting the uneasy as well as the celebratory, these poems are diverse in both subject and approach. They are written with a light touch, but they are rich in imagery, and the poet's voice, though delicate, is distinct and memorable.
How the Stone Found Its Voice
Moniza Alvi's title sequence How The Stone Found Its Voice is a series of poems inspired by creation myths. Begun in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11, they are imbued with the dark spirit of that time, with titles including 'How The World Split In Two', 'How The Answers Got Their Questions' and 'How The Countries Slipped Away'. These are followed by poems in which Moniza Alvi takes a more autobiographical approach to racial conflict and the split between East and West, and by The Return of My Wife' a continuation of a sequence from her earlier book Carrying My Wife. Versions of the French poet Jules Supervielle (1884-1960) with their Second World War background and exploration of personal fragility provide a linking thread. How the Stone Found Its Voice is a varied collection with echoes across its different sections, all equally vital to the whole.
Blackbird, Bye Bye
Moniza Alvi's new book is unified by birds. Her creations 'Motherbird' and 'Fatherbird' are inspired by her parents, the idea of her father's immigration, and also by the loss of her Pakistani father. Among the many bird-related poems are versions of the French poets Jules Supervielle and Saint-John Perse, and poems 'after' the paintings of the Spanish-Mexican surrealist artist Remedios Varo. Blackbird, Bye Bye is Moniza Alvi's first new poetry book since her T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted collection At the Time of Partition, published in 2013.
Europa
Many of the poems here relate to ancient and modern traumas, including enforced exile, alienation, rape and 'honour killing'. The book's centre-piece is a re-imagining of the story of the rape of Europa by Jupiter as a bull.
Carrying My Wife
Moniza Alvi left Pakistan for England when a few months old. In The Country at My Shoulder and A Bowl of Warm Air, she drew on real and imagined homelands in poems which are 'vivid, witty and imbued with unexpected and delicious glimpses of the surreal - this poet's third country' (Maura Dooley). In the new poems of Carrying My Wife, her delicately drawn fantasies transform the familiar into strange evocations of the joys and tensions of relationships, of love, intimacy, frustration, jealousy and paranoia, her rich imagery and luxuriant imagination recalling the transformations of Chagall paintings, the dream-visions of Douannier-Rousseau. In the title-sequence she plays the role of husband to an imaginary wife. Writing from a male or "husband" viewpoint, she is able both to distance herself and to zoom into sensations and difficulties, so that surreal aspects of relationships emerge as well as the humour which might have been blurred in a head-on approach. Her poems do not attempt a male stance, but show another way of looking at oneself.
Fairoz
Fairoz is a a powerful portrayal of human vulnerability, a book-length poetry sequence in which Moniza Alvi explores an imagined teenage girl's susceptibility to extremism. The book's fragmented, collaging narrative draws together fairytale elements, glimpses of Fairoz's thoughts, and pieces of dialogue.
Homesick for the Earth
A collection of the French poet's works with both the original French versions and the English translations.
A Bowl of Warm Air
In this wonderful second collection, Moniza Alvi steps boldly into the territory she made her own in the Country at my Shoulder, a book which made her one of the chosen' New Generation' of poets. A greater depth of seriousness infuses her poems on Pakistan and India, but she has retained her delicacy of spirit and the gentle surrealism that identifies her work.'
