Muhammad, LECO52032, Analysis of poem 'An Introduction' by Kamala Das as a confessional poetry.

Kamala Das was a major Indian English poet  and at the same time a leading Malayalam author from Kerala. Kamala Das is perhaps the most interesting and controversial figure in post-colonial Indian English poetry.  She wrote under the pen name Madhavikutty in Malayalam. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography. She later changed her name to Kamala Suraiyya when she accepted Islam. She was also a widely read columnist  and wrote on diverse topics including women’s issues, child care, politics among others.  Her poetry has been both praised and criticized on her frank dealing and uninhibited expression of sexual desires of a woman, and her satisfaction and frustration on this account. Kamala Das was a bold writer, and treated sex in her poetry irrespective of of traditional background.

Kamala Das has developed a poetic form, which is conversational and colloquial in style, which is apt for her confessional nature of her poetry. Her worldly honesty holds forth  to her exploration of womanhood and love. Her  poem ‘An Introduction’ from ‘Summer in Calcutta’, begins with an explanation for why she writes in English, and not exclusively in ‘Malayalam’, her reasons are not pragmatic, but personal, “The language I speak becomes mine …but it is honest.  Again in this poem she shows us her frustration in her marital love and justifies with an extra marital relationship with a person who took response to her urges. “I met a man, loved him , called him not by any name , he is every man who wants a woman, just as  I am every woman who seeks love”. 

Kamala Das speaks with the rare courage of her heart, humiliation and loss of identity in the male dominated society. Das’s personal life and observations are portrayed in her poem which seems to become universal. Her voice symbolizes the modern woman who wants to free from religious orthodoxy and from patriarchal society. Kamala Das took her readers' mind to take a look in her personal life, it extended up to their bedroom secrets. A true confessional poet does not draw a line or border to their secret life. She mirrors her life in all its nakedness particularly the experienced horrors as well as the rare joy of love.

The theme of her poems are love or lust and marriage, it is crystal clear that in dealing with these topics she hides nothing. The poem ‘An Introduction’ deals with poets' extreme feminine sensibility.  The lines are extremely personal and highly emotional, and a kind of information that an Indian woman hesitates to disclose to the reading audience or public about themselves. It is exactly counter to the poets like T.S. Eliot, who described their poetry as an “an escape from personality”. Kamala Das really anatomizes and probes into her own female psyche and images powerfully in the poetry. In short Kamala Das gives us a description of her physical experiences, her jobs and failure in love.