Immigrant, 2018
Usha Kishore’s poetry book Immigrant seems to be addressing that anxiety, hypothesized around a series of topics like post-modern anxiety, identity politics, national and self definitions, the problematic of exile and diaspora, and an interest to prove the way Indian English poetry has established itself and set up as a separate discipline in the West.
Nandini Sahu, Life and Legends, USA – CLICK HERE
This fascinating work captures reality and metaphors of our dual and simultaneous existence as immigrants through the aspects of icons, symbols, events, spirituality, religion, food, culture, arts, and the adverse political space.
Yogesh Patel, Asian Voice, UK – CLICK HERE
The immigrant is a powerful voice forging connect between two cultures, it not about being appropriated but also speaking of ‘identities’. In the post- modern world, these multiple identities create the much needed homogeneous space. Kishore’s voice is undoubtedly one such.
Madhumita Majumdar, Lapis Lazuli, India – CLICK HERE
Critiques
What makes Kishore different from the contemporary diasporic poets is that she aims at questioning and challenging the hegemony that dictates the racial hierarchy, and redefining and reinterpreting power-relation in the diaspora space.
Prasun Maji, Language in India – CLICK HERE
Night Sky Between the Stars, 2015
Muse India, 2015
The feminism of Usha, who is well-
Atreya Sarma Uppuluri –
The Lake, UK, September 2015
Usha Kishore explores the relevance of the eternal societal myths that unite and bind a vast nation and its diasporic children outside the native shores. She explores the artificial constructs and gendered identities and discovers truths and their enduring validity for hungry generations searching for meaning and faith in a mass society where nothing is allowed to remain sacred except consumerism and its fickle competing brands guarantying instant satiety.
Sunil Sharma –
The Book Review, India, September 2015
Usha’s poetry deals with conflicts of identity and cultural belonging. She exploits the resources of the English language and moulds it into meaning. Her timely collection sensitises the readers to the interplay of the host culture and the root culture, and takes them beyond boundaries.
Jaydeep Sarangi –
On Manannan’s Isle, 2014
The Lake, UK, 2014
It is a cliché to call Usha Kishore’s poems solely a “migrant discourse”. It is unjust if we label her a “confessional poet”. Kishore’s poetry goes beyond the limits of a genre of migrant vocabulary and idioms of so called ‘expected’ feminine discourse as in timeless myth. Her poems search for a new “Occident–Orient” alliance; a collective literary homogeneity.
Jayadeep Sarangi –
The Mascara Literary Review, Australia, April 2015
Kishore’s poetry in On Manannan’s Isle attempts to analyse the notions of Otherness and integration, displacement and exile and in that process interrogates the definitions of home and the boundaries of homeland. On Manannan’s Isle thus projects Kishore as a contemporary poet of the Indian diaspora with a strong, distinct voice — assimilative of the two cultures yet retaining its own tenor.
Sutapa Chaudhuri –
Home Thoughts, 2017
Home Thoughts is a compilation which deals with multiple facets of postcolonial existence, the craving of the poets to cling on to their roots and at the same time, be assimilated to an alien culture, retaining their identity and dignity and the questioning bent of minds of the poets regarding pertinent social issues like position of women in the contemporary socio-
Mahuya Bhaumik, The Lake, Nov-
Translating the Divine Woman, 2015
The translation is refreshing and modern as envisioned by the translator duo. They have succeeded in transporting the alliterative and euphonious melody into the translation.
Atreya Sarma Uppuluri, Muse India, Nov-
CLICK HERE to read Usha’s article on the process and project