Expressive Form in the Poetry of Kamala Das

Book excerpt: The Poetry Of Kamala Das Is A Sort Of Psychic Striptease. She Explores Her Psychic Geography With An Exceptional Female Energy And The Capability To Express Her Inimitable Vision Through The Technique Of Sincerity. The Quest For An Emotional Liaison And Her Failure To Establish One Is The Central Burden Of Her Poetry. From The Thematic Standpoint Her Poetry Originates From A Dark End And Performs, In Turn, A Curative Function. The Limited Range Of Her Experience May Account For Her Thematic Staisis But It Turns Out To Be Too Marginal A Point If We Consider The Fire Of Her Creativity. Her Typical Feminine Sensibility And The Confessional Mode Have Been Explored Through Her Obsessive Images, Symbols And The Frank Disarming Manner. With Her Insistence On Self, On Approaching Love With Love And Her Crying When Jilted In It, She Creates The Type Of Poetic Form Which May Adequately Be Called Expressive . In Her Urge To Take A Flight In A Different World And Give A Full Throated Expression To Her Indigenous Self She Projects Her Distinct Individuality. Kamala Das Composes The Raga Of Self In Her Poetry, A Symphony Of The Discordant Notes Of Life.