Remembering Eunice De Souza (Five poems from the 1983 anthology edited by Peter Nazareth)

[Goanet Reader]

You Left Mid-Sentence: Eunice De Souza, 1940-2017 (TheWire.in Shefali Balsari Shah)

https://thewire.in/162839/poet-writer-eunice-de-souza-passes-away-obituary/

Eunice de Souza was a legend who notoriously “terrorised (successfully) the bank manager” as well as her contemporaries, colleagues and generations of students (even college principals have been known to quake before her). Her weapons: an acerbic tongue and devastating wit bolstered by impeccable logic. She was a true savant whose departure leaves a gaping hole in our intellectual sphere.

Eunice has been widely acclaimed as a poet, novelist and anthologist of 19th and 20th century Indian writing. She was also a critic, columnist and writer for children. Her first book of poetry Fix (1979) was hailed as “…a practically perfect book, and one of the most brilliant first books I have encountered” (K.D. Katrak, The Sunday Observer). Most of the poems seem at first to be caricatures of the Goan community, but are in fact minutely-observed revelations, occasionally indulgent but more often critical. There are also several wrenching poems about the poet’s own fraught and unresolved relationships. Her mix of trenchant observation and the confessional with more than a touch of self-deprecation and black humour became her distinctive style, reappearing in later collections, Women in Dutch Painting (1988), Ways of Belonging (1990), Selected and New Poems (1994), and A Necklace of Skulls (2009), unabashed even in her last volume Learn from the Almond Leaf (2016)

Noted poet Eunice De Souza passes away: The Hindu (Kenneth Rosario)

http://www.thehindu.com/books/noted-poet-eunice-de-souza-passes-away/article19385390.ece

Eunice de Souza (1940-2017): Poet and inspirational teacher who lived with enjoyment and defiance (Scroll.in Rochelle Pinto)

https://scroll.in/article/845438/eunice-de-souza-1940-2017-poet-and-inspirational-teacher-who-lived-with-enjoyment-and-defiance

Noted poet Eunice de Souza passes away: Indian Express

http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/books/noted-poet-eunice-de-souza-passes-away-in-mumbai-4772767/

Eunice de Souza, poet and professor of literature, passes away in Mumbai (FirstPost.com)

http://www.firstpost.com/living/eunice-de-souza-poet-and-professor-of-literature-passes-away-in-mumbai-3870175.html

Eunice de Souza speaks about her edited anthology of Indian poetry (Scroll.in)
https://video.scroll.in/845412/watch-eunice-de-souza-1940-2017-speaks-about-her-edited-anthology-of-indian-poetry

Mumbai: Eunice de Souza, poet and literature professor, passes away (FPJ)
http://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/mumbai-eunice-de-souza-poet-and-literature-professor-passes-away/1112425

Renowned poet Eucine de Souza passes away (AsianAge)
http://www.asianage.com/metros/mumbai/300717/renowned-poet-eunice-de-souza-passes-away.html

Five Poems: Eunice De Souza

ONE MAN’S POETRY

Irony as an attitude to life
is passé! you said
So be it, friend.
Let me be passé and survive.
Leave me the cutting edge of words
to clear a world for
my ego.

The rage is almost done.
My soul’s almost my own.

Chances are
my father himself
didn’t wish to die.

My mother watched by his bedside
and never forgave herself
for being asleep
the night he died.
He left a desk, a chair,
a typewriter, and a notebook.
At family gatherings
my mother smiled
in her best faded chiffon
and travelled third
with her in-laws travelling first
in the same train.

As I grew up
I longed only
to laugh easily,
all that emerged
was a nervous whinny.
My limbs began to scatter
my face dissolve
my love would hold me close
for hours when I could
neither speak nor weep,
bring me food and feed me.

From him I am learning to love.

HE SPEAKS

Well, now tell me
what would you do to a
woman who wrote to you
saying: You haven’t written
for three weeks. You’re the
meanest man alive. Not even
an exclamation mark at the end
and she sends telegrams and
express letters saying it was
a joke, love, it was a joke.
I did what any self-respecting
man would. I ignored her for
a week. Her pleadings wore
me down. She was an affectionate
creature and tried hard, poor dear,
but never quite made the grade.
She would walk too close to me
and then protest naively: How
should lovers walk? Show me:
Ridiculous, too, her unseemly
mirth when I said confidently:
I have such an hypnotic effect
on women. Everywhere I go
they fall into my arms.
Jamie Bond! she cried
My man is India’s answer to
Jamie Bond!
After that pathological display
I decided there was only one
thing to do: fix her.
The next time we were making love
I said quite casually:
I hope you realize I do this
with other women.

FOR A
CATHOLIC
FRIEND

You madden me
with your enthusiasm
for everybody and everything.
One day it’s peace meetings
in Cyprus that will save the world
another day it’s Pentecostal feats
in Ohio the banging of cymbals
and oh-but-it’s true
the Holy Spirit appears.
I cut in, dyspeptic.
You stop, startled into tears.
I’m chastened. You’re not Catholics
I remember,
you’re vulnerable.
I cancel a class
rush out to buy you a
Modern Greek Poets
that I love.

Next time we meet
You’re enthusiastic
about the poems.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

Right now, here it comes.
I killed my father when I was three.
I have muddled through several affairs
and always come out badly.
I’ve learned almost nothing from experience.
I head for the abyss with
monotonous regularity.

My enemies say I’m a critic because
really I’m writing with envy
and anyway need to get married.

My friends say I’m not
entirely without talent.

Yes, I’ve tried suicide,
I tidied my clothes but
left no notes. I was surprised
to wake up in the morning.

One day my soul
stood outside me
watching me twitch
and grin and gibber
the skin tight
over my bones.

I thought the whole world
was trying to rip me up
cut me down, go through me
with a razor blade

then I discovered
a cliché: that’s what I wanted
to do to the world.

POEM FOR A POET

It pays to be a poet.
You don’t have to pay prostitutes.

Marie has spiritual thingummies.
Write her a poem about the
Holy Ghost. Say:

“Marie, my frequent sexual encounters
represent more than an attempt
to find mere physical fulfillment.
They are a poet’s struggle to
transcend the self
and enter into
communion
with the world.”

Marie’s eyes will glow.
Pentecostal flames will descend
The Holy Ghost will tremble inside her.
She will babble in strange tongues.

“O Universal Lover
in a state of perpetual erection:
Let me too enter into
communion with the world
through thee.”

Ritu loves music and
has made a hobby of psychology.
Undergraduate, and better still,
uninitiated.
Write her a poem about woman flesh
Watch her become oh so womanly and grateful.

Giggle with her about
horrid mother keeping an eye
on the pair, the would-be babes
in the wood, and everything will be
so idyllic, so romantic
so intimé.

Except that you, big deal,
are forty-six
and know what works
with whom.

[Eugene Correia]

Melanie Silgrado was involved in the work of publishing anthologies in poetry by  Eunice de Souza. So, her poem, Goan Death, is appropriate to the occasion.  Poem is also from the Journal of South Asian Literature, guest edited by Peter Nazareth.

GOAN DEATH

Midst stench of life

my father

lay encoffined

cotton stuffed in nostrils

ice below.

Vultures clustered round

in lace and satin blacks

weeping  salt,

raw red their mouths,

mumbling incoherent prayers,

their dentures going down.

Wife, my mother 

tore within her,

memories and still born past.

Hallucinations for tomorrow

she wept

no salt-corrosive.

Destruction clung inside her.

But,

Vultures not seeing

code of clan,

picking entrails neatly

said:

Were you true wife

your head be bowed.

in weeping, mourning state.

Though life-strung ropes

the dead man tugged

made dead response to that.

===

Eugene

[Nazareth, Peter]

Dear Adil,

Thank you for giving me the sad news about the passing of Eunice.

I checked the papers and read about some of her later work and saw her image and heard her voice on-line. 

I liked her poetry from the beginning.  I included five poems by her in the issue of JSAL I edited on Goan literature, published as a book a few years ago by Goa 1556 as "Pivoting on the Point of Return".  You would be aware of this as I included your fine analysis of her (early) poetry.

Her students praised her highly, as I discovered from the few I knew.  I am sorry I did not get to know her better.  She was supposed to come to the International Writing Program some years ago but Clark Blaise, then the Director, informed me that she had decided not to come because she found out that American planes did not permit passengers to smoke.

I am attaching fyi a review I wrote for a history journal in Essex that may interest you. That is assuming that you receive it as last I knew from Eunice she used to send your messages on her computer.

Greetings from Mary.  This Fall will be the fiftieth anniversary of the IWP.

Best.

Peter

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From: goa-bo...@googlegroups.com <goa-bo...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Eugene Correia <eugene....@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2017 2:54 PM
To: The Goa Book Club
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Subject: [GOABOOKCLUB] Re: Remembering Eunice De Souza (Five poems from the 1983 anthology edited by Peter Nazareth)

 

'You Left Mid-Sentence'...Eunice De Souza (1940- 2017) thewire.in

Eunice has been widely acclaimed as a poet, novelist and anthologist of 19th and 20th century Indian writing. She was also a critic, columnist and writer for children.

Eunice de Souza was a legend who notoriously “terrorised (successfully) the bank manager” as well as her contemporaries, colleagues and generations of students (even college principals have been known to quake before her). Her weapons: an acerbic tongue and devastating wit bolstered by impeccable logic. She was a true savant whose departure leaves a gaping hole in our intellectual sphere.

Eunice has been widely acclaimed as a poet, novelist and anthologist of 19th and 20th century Indian writing. She was also a critic, columnist and writer for children. Her first book of poetry Fix (1979) was hailed as “…a practically perfect book, and one of the most brilliant first books I have encountered” (K.D. Katrak, The Sunday Observer). Most of the poems seem at first to be caricatures of the Goan community, but are in fact minutely-observed revelations, occasionally indulgent but more often critical. There are also several wrenching poems about the poet’s own fraught and unresolved relationships. Her mix of trenchant observation and the confessional with more than a touch of self-deprecation and black humour became her distinctive style, reappearing in later collections, Women in Dutch Painting (1988), Ways of Belonging (1990), Selected and New Poems (1994), and A Necklace of Skulls (2009), unabashed even in her last volume Learn from the Almond Leaf (2016)

Noted poet Eunice De Souza passes away: The Hindu (Kenneth Rosario)

http://www.thehindu.com/books/noted-poet-eunice-de-souza-passes-away/article19385390.ece

Noted poet Eunice de Souza passes away - The Hindu www.thehindu.com Educator, poet, novelist and newspaper columnist Eunice de Souza passed away at her residence on Saturday morning at the age of 76. She inspired ...

Eunice de Souza (1940-2017): Poet and inspirational teacher who lived with enjoyment and defiance (Scroll.in Rochelle Pinto)

https://scroll.in/article/845438/eunice-de-souza-1940-2017-poet-and-inspirational-teacher-who-lived-with-enjoyment-and-defiance

Eunice de Souza (1940-2017): Poet and inspirational ... scroll.in Those unlucky enough not to have been in her class still have her poems. But Eunice de Souza will be remembered more vividly by students who recall her character ...

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