indiom by Daljit Nagra
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE AUTUMN 2023
This East-meets-West hybrid work combines playful cavort with serious comment.
A cast of ‘Indic-heritage poets’ meets to perform poems and discuss the future of poetry. indiom engages eclectic, often Rabelaisian styles on subjects as various as the Indian poet Nissim Ezekiel, Shakespearean comedy, Under Milk Wood, The Simpsons and Newcastle United. Daljit Nagra’s mock epic scrutinises the legacies of Empire and issues such as power and status, casteism and colourism, mimicry and mockery. What is Britishness now? How can humour help us survive hardship? The result is a capacious ‘talkie’/poem/play of resistance and redress whose ludic structures defy boundaries: a story of intertextual and misplaced identities, gods and miracles, celluloid tragedy and blushing romantic desire amid an awkwardly rolling cricket ball and rioting poodles.
‘Nagra push[es] the puckishness of his style to address social themes of increasing significance.’ Guardian
Faber
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