In welcoming these two new collections it should be in order to start with a general comment or two on the present-day status of the subcontinent's English poetry. It can at least be a gesture towards redressal--for there is a tendency to downplay the significance of this body of verse. Salman Rushdie's notorious introduction to The Vintage Book of Indian Writing (1997), for instance, relegates Indian poetry in English to the role of poor cousin to its prose counterpart, and denies it entry into the anthology.

Rushdie's precise formulation of his stand, both in this introduction and in the slightly altered version bearing the Hatterresque title "Damme, This Is the Oriental Scene for You!", deserves a close look. In the former he declares peremptorily that India's "English-language poets, with a few distinguished exceptions (Arun Kolatkar, A. K. Ramanujan, Jayanta Mahapatra, to name just three), did not match the quality of their counterparts in prose." The qualificatory phrase "to name just three" seems to indicate that the list could be considerably extended. But in the essay's other version this phrase is dropped while Dom Moraes is included in the list of poets--which seems to imply that no further extension of the list is permissible. And yet in this essay Rushdie also quotes admiringly from the late lamented Agha Shahid Ali, regarding whom the critical consensus is that he was undeniably a major talent. That makes five. Then again, how can Nissim Ezekiel be left out? Rushdie could, I suppose, for personal reasons: Ezekiel had supported the ban on the Satanic Verses. And what about Parthasarathy or Mehrotra or Imtiaz Dharker, Sujata Bhatt, Kamala Suraiya (formerly Kamala Das)?

No, Rushdie's imperious dismissal of Indian English verse cannot be justified even within his own frame of reference. It is nothing but the "imperialism" of Rushdie's chosen genre, prose fiction; other genres are turned into marginalized "others." There could be concealed jealously as well: Rushdie's sole published poem is a pathetic piece written in response to the fatwa. That it is, as far as I know, the only poem to appear in Granta tells you something about present-day conceptions of literature.

And yet, if I apply what I call the re-readability test (only stuff you enjoy re-reading possesses unquestioned literary value) I find that the best poems of a sizeable number of Indian English poets qualify. Among writers of prose fiction, R. K. Narayan, clearly does. But Rushdie? Very little of his, even from the days before he lost both looks and talent. (Sorry--that's a cheap shot.)

As if attitudes like Rushdie's or of those responsible for Granta's editorial policy weren't bad enough, Indian English poets make things more difficult for themselves by wasting energy on personal animosities and wrong-headed debates. Parthasarathy and Mehrotra don't like each other; so Mehrotra doesn't include Parthasarathy in his anthology of twelve Indian English poets. Mahapatra in an article reprinted on this page (Of The Lowly Potato: Indian English Poetry Today, January 10, 2004) was dismissive of the city-centred ironic mode that dominates contemporary Indian English poetry and suggested that one reason for its prominence was patronage by foreign editors and publishers. To illustrate his print he singled out the late Alan Ross, who as editor of London Magazine promoted the Indian English urban ironists but rejected Mahapatra, who wrote a different kind of poetry. I can deliver two pinpricks to deflate Mahapatra's argument. First, Ross was very catholic in his taste and printed whatever he considered interesting, irrespective of its aesthetic orientation: among those he promoted when they were little-known were Derek Walcott, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Tony Harrison, none of whom fits into the so-called ironic mould. Second, Mahapatra's own ascent into literary prominence was boosted by the previous editor of Poetry and the Georgia University Press, which published a collection of his work.

The point of my remarks is to underscore the importance of what we could call aesthetic liberalism, which should enable us to appreciate diverse genres and literary modes. It will certainly bring home to us the continuing vitality of the Anglophone tradition in subcontinental poetry, and women's contribution to it, which has been conspicuous almost since its inception: Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Kamala Suraiya. Unsurprisingly, among younger poets, women are better represented than in previous generations.

Menka Shivdasani was critically acclaimed on the appearance of her first collection, the outcome of twelve years of apprenticeship, Nirvana at Ten Rupees (1990), which Bruce King in the revised edition of his book Modern Indian Poetry in English (2001) describes as "one of the best first books of poetry to appear during the 1990s." King goes on to note that Shivdasani "anticipated many of the new characteristics of Bombay poetry as it would develop during the 1990s." As readers will recall from her moving memoir of Nissim Ezekiel published on this page (Nissim Ezekiel: you missed out a comma in the fourth line, January 24, 2004), she went through some sort of tutelage under that doyen of Indian English poets. Ezekiel remains a living presence, creatively assimilated, in Shivdasani's work, thus refuting Mahapatra's contention that the poetic mode he pioneered is played out. Shivdasani has learned much from Ezekiel's sharp observations, his mordant humour, his use of the rhythms and intonation of standard Indian English. These qualities are given a feminist edge in her idiolect:

You ought to have told me
it would all crack up one day.
Bricked over, we lived
in worlds we couldn't share,
away from the bustle and ticking clock
whose hands touch
only once a day.

Shivdasani has a fondness for rhyme, but should check the urge to force it on her lines, as she does once or twice, resulting in odd word order (" . . . that once she so well knew") or slack rhythm (" . . . down into the depths out of sight").

The present volume is her second collection, and includes fourteen poems from the first, together with thirty-one new poems (one of these is a prose poem); and a poignant short story set against a riot-torn background: almost certainly the recent holocaust in Gujrat, which also haunts some of the poems. It can therefore be regarded as a selection of her creative output over a quarter century; and it is doubtless a notable achievement.

Unlike India, Bangladesh produces only the odd book of English verse from time to time, which makes the appearance of Rhododendron Lane particularly welcome. It is a debut collection by Nuzhat Amin Mannan, who is on the English faculty of Dhaka University, and though relatively slim it distills many years of writing. Personal ties take centre stage but equally conspicuous is the sharply observed social scene, with details of individual personalities subjected to a vivisecting gaze:

Her hormone-declined face was
like a peeling paratha, one that was
fried and then went soggy, gone to waste.

The personal poems lean towards the confessional mode and deal with romantic, marital as well as filial ties. "Valentine: For Husband," one of the most successfully realized poems in the book, compares well in its sustained intensity with some of Kamala Suraiya's best-known poems.

Nuzhat Mannan has made a highly promising debut and poetry lovers will expect more from her pointed pen.

Kaiser Huq teaches English at Dhaka University.