Sampurna Chattarji was born in Africa in 1970, grew up in Darjeeling, went to college in New Delhi and worked for

seven years in advertising in Kolkata and Mumbai before becoming a full-time writer. Her work has been
translated into a number of languages, including Welsh, with translations forthcoming in a special volume by the Writers’ Chain poets to be published in 2013. Sampurna is a poet, novelist, writer for children and
translator with eight books to her credit, including poetry collections Sight May Strike You Blind (2007) and Absent Muses (2010), novel Rupture (2009). She has been included in The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary
Indian Poets (Bloodaxe, UK) and The HarperCollins Book of Modern English Poetry by Indians (forthcoming, HarperCollins). Her translation from Bengali of Sukumar Ray’s poetry and prose Abol Tabol: The Nonsense
World of Sukumar Ray into English was reissued in 2008 as a Puffin Classic entitled Wordygurdyboom! She started translating into Bengali as a result of her participation in Literature Across Frontiers workshops in 2009
and 2010 and participated in the Writers’ Chain project organised by Wales Arts International and Wales Literature Exchange.
- Lack of space
Poetry Analysis Acronym - Forced migration
SLIMEBETPTM - Box vs Home
S: Structure, setting, stanza length, style
BOXES
- Connotations
L: Literary devices, Language complexity, Line lengths and line ends? - Imagery
I: Imagery - Metaphors
- Visual - Onomatopoeia
- Auditory
- Olfactory SAMPURNA CHATTARJI - Sibilance
- Alliteration: Gutturals (G,C,K) + Plosives (P,B)
- Gustatory - Assonance, Consonance
- Tactile - Cacophony
- Kinesthetic - Symbols
M: Implicit meanings - Pathetic Fallacy
B: Beginning Lack of specificity- Her Connotations? Outsider? Connotations? sound? - Personification
E: End
T: Title, Themes
Her balcony bears an orchid smuggled in a duffle bag - Enjambment
Plosives-harsh consonants - Internal Rhyme
P: Punctuations, Poetic techniques Significance of time-Short duration - Half Rhyme
Asia? But only limited to this continent? Telegraphic sentence
T: Tone
M: Mood from Singapore. It’s roots cling to air. For two hours - Lexical Clusters
Suffocation?- Pathetic fallacy + personification
every? routine? effect?
Stanza Lengths:
one: Monostitch every morning the harsh October sun turns tender Lines are run on
Two: Couplet Half rhymes- why? Sibilance+alliteration
Three: Tercet Numbers
Four: Quatrain at its leaves. Nine steps from door to balcony and
Five: Quintain
Six: Sestet No Rhyme.
Trapped. Tone? Metaphor. Why not a simile?
Seven: Septet
Eight: Octave
already she is a giant insect fretting in a jar.
Imagery? Connotations of jar? + Punctuation?
5 lines stanza
Line length here? Smaller- why? Imperative to pay attention to sounds.

Repetition: "one"
On one side of her one-room home, a stove, where she Imagery?

nothing fancy end stopped

Tone, mood and narrative voice?
Image of straight lines
cooks dal in an iron pan. The smell of food is good. again comparatively-a short sentence.

Why? Title? Identify where? bars? connotations?

Through the window bars the sing-song of voices high Positive images- sing-song why?

Descriptive Husband? Description? end stopped

then low in steady arcs. With his back to the wall,
Rhyming couplet line lengths?
Pay attention to punctuations. Too many Caesuras. why?
a husband, and a giant stack of quilts, threatening to fall.
end stopped.

Sleeping room only, a note on the door should have read,

readying you for cramp. Fall in and kick off your shoes.

right-angled to this corridor with a bed, trains make tracks

to unfamiliar sounding places. Unhidden by her curtains,

two giant black pigs lie dead, or sleeping, on a dump.

Every day the city grows taller, trampling underfoot

students wives lovers babies. The boxes grow smaller.

The sea becomes a distant memory of lashing wave

and neon, siren to seven islands, once. The sky strides

inland on giant stilts, unstoppable, shutting out the light.