A God at the Door

Tishani Doshi

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781780375779
• eBook ISBN: 9781780375762
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Women in Poetry
• Index: Literature

An exquisite collection from a poet at the peak of her powers, A God at the Door spans time and space, drawing on the extraordinary minutiae of nature and humanity to elevate the marginalised. Extending the territory of her zeitgeist collection Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, these new poems traverse history, from the cosmic to the quotidian. There is a playful spikiness to be found in poems like 'Why the Brazilian Butt Lift Won't Save Us', while others, such as 'I Found a Village and in it Were All Our Missing Women', are fed by rage. As the collection unfolds, there are gem-like poems such as 'I Carry My Uterus in a Small Suitcase' which sparkles on the page with impeccable precision. Later, there are the sharp shocks delivered by two mirrored poems set side by side, 'Microeconomics' and 'Macroeconomics'. Tishani Doshi's poetry bestows power on the powerless, deploys beauty to heal trauma, and enables the voices of the oppressed to be heard with piercing clarity. From flightless birds and witches, to black holes and Marilyn Monroe, A God at the Door illuminates with lines and images that surprise, inflame and dazzle.

30

Instructions on Surviving Genocide

In the study of comparative

trauma, it is important to ask

how much have you suffered,

and is it enough? Hello, are you still

breathing? No, this is not the time

to speak of boots and grenades.

Just nod if you want to be counted.

Courtroom exhibit one: Make way

for the man with the funny moustache.

Gosh, there are so many of them.

Our enemies slip infertility pills into

samosas so we must be vigilant.

Your family was wiped out? Come.

There’s a seat for you on the truck.

Remember, cities rise and fall

just as names of streets change

from uppity colonial settler to local

yogalord. In any event, refuse to be

devoured. Do not mess with the birth-

places of gods. Most massacres being

propagated by god-whisperers.

Meanwhile, a woman in the square

shouts about how there are many ways

of taking a stand. The way she chooses

is naked, with one leg here, the other there.

Are you scared? They’ll stuff her mouth

and make her watch, subdue her

ethnically recalcitrant womb, 31

and despite all footage, the event

will be blurred from the nation’s memory

span. Do not believe those who say it was

wonderful before the war. Listen instead

to those saying, get out, get out while you can.

They work the streets, exhuming bodies,

finding safety pins instead of buttons.

There was a grand theatre here,

a library, houses with balconies. This was

a good place with good people. Fathers were

weavers of rugs. They passed down secrets

through needles as if they already knew a day

would come when all the able-bodied men

would be taken away. The women…

What more can be said about women?

Leave it. If history were a picture show

and we kept editing the bits we didn’t like

snip snip snip

all we could agree on would be a field

in the sun. A field is just a field after all.

Until you’re introduced to the worms.

Until you find the bottles of rum,

the coats glazed with pox. All handed

out freely. Take one, take three! The victory

of genocide relies on an understanding

of pathogens. To receive a harpoon

you must be able to spell extirpation

followed by this execrable race. 32

There comes a point in the battle

when the last international watchdog

is forced to leave the country. Reader,

I know you’re prone to anxiety. This

is when it happens. The lagoon, the ambush.

Bullets raining down in a no-fire...

Table of contents

• Description
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Epigraph
• Mandala
• Pilgrimage
• Creation Abecedarian
• The Stormtroopers of My Country
• My Loneliness Is Not the Same as Your Loneliness
• A Blue Mormon Finds Herself Among Common Emigrants
• Why the Brazilian Butt Lift Won’t Save Us
• Every Unbearable Thing
• Advice for Pliny the Elder, Big Daddy of Mansplainers
• Roots
• In a Dream I Give Birth to a Sumo Wrestler
• Instructions on Surviving Genocide
• The Comeback of Speedos
• Face Exercises for Marionette Lines
• I Found a Village and in it Were All our Missing Women
• Contagion
• Tree of Life
• Homage to the Square
• I Don’t Want to be Remembered by My Last Instagram Post
• Everyone Has a Wilting Point
• Tigress Hugs Manchurian Fir
• Poems Lull Us Into Safety
• After a Shooting in a Maternity Clinic in Kabul
• They Killed Cows. I Killed Them.
• Cell
• Self
• Collective
• Nation
• Species
• Cosmos
• The Coronapocalypse Will Be Televised
• Variations on Hippo
• A Dress is Like a Field
• Postcard to My Mother-in-Law Who at 16 is Chasing Brigitte Bardot in St Tropez
• Together
• Many Good & Wonderful Things
• I Carry My Uterus in a Small Suitcase
• Bacterium
• A Possible Explanation as to Why We Mutilate Women & Trees, which Tries to End on a Note of Hope
• What Mr Frog Running Away from Marilyn Monroe Taught Me About #MeToo
• Tiger Woman
• We Will Not Kill You. We’ll Just Shoot You in the Vagina.
• Microeconomics
• Macroeconomics
• This May Reach You Either as a Bird or Flower
• Petard
• Rotten Grief
• October Fugue
• Do Not Go Out in the Storm
• Listening to Abida Parveen on Loop, I Understand Why I Miss Home and Why It Must Be So
• End-of-Year Epiphany at the Holiday Inn
• It Has Taken Many Years to See My Body
• Hope Is the Thing
• Survival
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright