Sonali Samarasinghe's first American publication is a book of poetry that explores the political murder of her husband in Sri Lanka and its aftermath as she begins a new life in exile.
"The eighteen poems in The Land My Father Gave Me are a cry and a song: loss, longing, anger, fear, pride, love, gratitude, eventual steps toward balance, the hope for internal and external peace. To read them is to walk through door within door, hallways of mirrors reflecting self and world. Sonali has brought intellect and political acumen to crafting poems about the most personal experiences, emotions, insights."
-- from the introduction by Katharyn Howd Machan
$14.95
ISBN 0-9798112-6-0
44 pages with illustrations by the author
from The Land My Father Gave Me
THIRTEEN NIGHTS
Somber auguries flood through – a portent
The bedroom mirror cracked in two upstairs
The vicar called again to change the date
The withered woman with her empty pails
On her shoulders, leering at my foul fate
As if she knew, the raven on the sill
Brought me dark news, in distorted tongue
Why the old speckled cat, nine years and barren
Grew large with young, to my amaranthine joy
Then as curiously as it began, with blood and tears
It ended, my great expectations foiled
Launched upon a voyage sans a sail
Thirteen wedded nights, and you exhaled
