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.