It is difficult to imagine that professor and poet Pramila Vankateswaran ever had trouble putting pen to paper. But in a recent e-mail in which she discussed her writing process with me, she revealed just that. The "shock of arrival" in the United States left her with a peculiar form of writer's block which lasted an astonishing 5 years and, in her own words was "probably due to the shock of being removed from familiar images." If one can imagine that during this time Pramila's mind was processing all of the strange sights and smells not to mention the inevitable conflicting feelings generated by the transfer to a new land, then the rich lushness of her Thirtha poems can be that much more appreciated. In her foreword, Pramila explains it thus:

A central metaphor for the immigrant in America, journeying is not merely the physical movement form place to place, temple to temple, but is the act of opening oneself up to what each moment offers. Along the way, the pilgrim becomes the conduit for the voices of other people speaking form the emptiness of displacement or the fullness of having arrived. In recording the intimate and commonplace particulars of people's lives, her images mix and dissolve, recreate and replenish experience, attempting to discard divisions and create newer harmonies. Thirtha, ultimately, is this process.

Thirtha is divided into three parts -- 'In the Haze of Continents', 'Lighter than Water', and 'Thirtha'. The poet sets the reader upon her own journey moving through a time when the sense of physical displacement results in emotional inertia. This is exemplified in the first poem of the collection, The Well. To this reader, it brought the somewhat comforting realization that "journey", the real thirtha, transcends physical place and is as much a journey of the heart and mind as location.

In The Well, the poet begins with an image that is in stark contrast to the literal and figurative warmth of India:

In the wake of fall's birds
I cross Greenwich Mean,
clouds and steel
holding us above the thin,
dotted slicing time.
Heaven is cold.
Snow fans out,
fails to ignite words.

The poem goes on to assure the reader that though there is a moment in which thoughts, words and feelings seem impenetrable, they are there, nonetheless:

Stories lie in the body's well.
I am the thirsty crow
dropping stones into it
until water rises to my cracked lips,
freeing sound.

Ultimately, Thirtha moves the reader by its struggle to know oneself and the world.

For the uninitiated, the collection contains a glossary of Indian terms, but the strength of the poems are such that one will not feel necessarily compelled to consult them. Venkateswaran makes the journey one which almost anyone can relate to, as her images are at once very particular and very universal. The expression of journey lies in wait within each and every one of us, wherever we may find ourselves:

Words rise where waters weave around
tip or cape; where lands shreds,
where depths let go of trees, only shallows here
to wash our feet before entering silence.

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