Meena Alexander

Biographic Data

ID3672221
NAMEMeena Alexander
GIVEN NAMESMeena
FAMILY NAMEAlexander
SIGNATUREALEXANDER M
AFFILIATIONSHunter College
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS39
TOTAL CITATIONS4
AUTHOR COUNT39
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1976
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2017
H-INDEX1

  • Interview by Zainab Ali and Dharini Rasiah

    Meena AlexanderCHAPTERWords Matter2017

  • Words Matter

    Meena Alexander, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni et al.BOOKWords Matter2017

    In this age of rapid transition, Asian American studies and American studies in general are being reconfigured to reflect global migrations and the diverse populations of the United States. Asian American literature, in particular, has embodied the crisis of identity that is at the heart of larger academic and political debates surrounding diversity and the inclusion and exclusion of immigrant and refugee groups. These issues underlie the very pr…

  • Two Poems

    Meena Alexander, Meena Alexander Meena AlexanderARTICLEWorld Literature Today2016

    30 WLT NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2016 Two Poems by Meena Alexander Fragments of an Inexistent Whole Inspired by Alison Knowles’s “A House of Dust” 1. Syllables sieved through floating gates, Metal clack of printer Mortal rendition, Fortran – The future coming closer and closer House of broken dishes / by the sea / using electricity Black flash, strange as any me I might claim The already gone, its music barely audible 00-111 – 000 cut and sizzling, swive…

  • Two Poems

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEWorld Literature Today2016

    30 WLT NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2016 Two Poems by Meena Alexander Fragments of an Inexistent Whole Inspired by Alison Knowles’s “A House of Dust” 1. Syllables sieved through floating gates, Metal clack of printer Mortal rendition, Fortran – The future coming closer and closer House of broken dishes / by the sea / using electricity Black flash, strange as any me I might claim The already gone, its music barely audible 00-111 – 000 cut and sizzling, swive…

  • Introduction

    Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Rosalind Petchesky et al.ARTICLEWomen's studies quarterly2014Cited by: 2

    Introduction:Life and Debt Rosalind Petchesky (bio) and Meena Alexander (bio) Give back the life I gaveyou pay me my money downso there’s no questionI did it for love for anythingbut desireput a tarnished nickel in my dishso the guard will knowwhen he comeswith a bleeding chickentied to his wristwith a bitter promisethat we are not kinuncommitted forever. —Audre Lorde, “Generation III” What, precisely, does it mean to say that our sense of morali…

  • What Use is Poetry

    Meena Alexander, Meena Alexander Meena AlexanderARTICLEWorld Literature Today2013

    In an address to the Yale Political Union on April 23, 2013, Meena Alexander began with a line from Shelley's 1821 essay, “A Defence of Poetry.” The resolution—“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”—led to a lively debate. What follows is a slightly revised version of the text she wrote for that occasion

  • What Cleopatra Sees

    Meena AlexanderARTICLECallaloo2013

    What Cleopatra Sees Meena Alexander (bio) Cleopatra in dark glasses turns a cornerAnd comes upon Morris Gittell Insurance Broker She hides behind a pillarSo he will not see her, the child loitering, close to the sign— We Help You in Obtaining Your Birth CertificateEspecially If You Were Born in the South. Why is the boy standing there?Dressed in his hooded sweatshirt He ducks his head, murmuring yes, yes, yesTo that other life, not yet come. Some…

  • Graduation 1949

    Meena AlexanderARTICLECallaloo2013

    Graduation 1949 Meena Alexander (bio) "I walk into the street and it comes to me." —Roy DeCarava She is at the brink of something she cannot see.Out of the shadows comes the Chevrolet Bel Air—Style Star of an AllStar Line And it's large and painted red though in the photo soft greyAnd seems to be made of lead. Where will it take her? Her skirts are ringed with dirtThey rest on asphalt with trash blown over, fit entry to the underworld. Her dress …

  • In Memory of Roy DeCarava (1919-2009)

    Meena AlexanderARTICLECallaloo2013

    In Memory of Roy DeCarava (1919-2009) Meena Alexander (bio) How can I forget the first time I met Roy DeCarava? It was at Hunter College where we both taught. There was some glitch in the cashier's office and faculty and staff had to travel down to the basement level and stand in line at a little window cut into the wall, to pick up a pay check. As I walked down the stairs I kept hoping the line wouldn't be too long. I had class coming up. There …

  • June Air

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEWorld Literature Today2010

    JuneAir MeenaAlexander Allsummer I wanted toholdtight TowhatI felt wasthetruth A penurious thing. AllI hadourbreath, anunsteady pulsing With holesenough Fora swallowtofly through. I remember oneinourroom Hovering bytheportrait ofsomeone else'sancestors A girl skirts askew, eyeshalf shut Seatedona tricycle. Behind her, handscradling hershoulders Aboybruised bypaint. Thebirdswambythegilt ceiling Thenstartled, dasheditself against thewindowframe. Af…

  • The GardenHyderabad NotebookCantata for a Riderless Horse (with Sitar and Flute)

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEMeridians2010

    Research Article| March 01 2010 The GardenHyderabad NotebookCantata for a Riderless Horse (with Sitar and Flute) Meena Alexander Meena Alexander Meena Alexander, born in Allahabad, India, is considered one of the foremost poets of her generation. She has published six volumes of poetry, including the Quickly Changing River (2008). The volume of essays Poetics of Dislocation appeared in 2009 in the Michigan Poets on Poetry Series. She is Distingui…

  • Poetics of Dislocation

    Meena AlexanderBOOKPoetics of dislocation2009

    Poetics of Dislocation sets the work of contemporary American poetry within the streams of migration that have made the nation what it is in the 21st century. There are few poets better qualified to muse on that context than Meena Alexander, who spent her life studying at prestigious institutions around the globe before settling in the United States to work on her acclaimed body of poetry. Part of the University of Michigan Press' award-winning P…

  • Mother, Windblown (A Suite)

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEWomen's studies quarterly2009

    Mother, Windblown (A Suite) Meena Alexander (bio) Je cherche la chanson, je dois la retrouver . . . —Marie Etienne 1. Housekeeper Where is your life,What has happened to it, old shoe? The ruinous everyday,How to cope with that? To have given birth once, twice,And before that, to have borne witness To a clot of bloodDrained into a china bowl. It was up there in the mountains,Where we loved each other Close to a forest of whistling deodar,Deer too,…

  • Elegy for My FatherRites of SenseBlack River, Walled GardenPitfire

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEMeridians2008

    Research Article| March 01 2008 Elegy for My FatherRites of SenseBlack River, Walled GardenPitfire Meena Alexander Meena Alexander meena alexander was born in India, raised there and in Sudan. At eighteen, she went to study in England. Her first poems were published when she was a teenager in Sudan, in Arabic translation. Currently, she lives and works in New York City where she is Distinguished Professor of English at the City University of New …

  • Rumors for an Immigrant

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEMELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of…2004

    Journal Article Rumors for an Immigrant: A Poem in Four Parts Get access Meena Alexander Meena Alexander 1Hunter College and Graduate Center, CUNY Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 29, Issue 3-4, Fall/Winter 2004, Pages 427–431, https://doi.org/10.2307/4141865 Published: 01 September 2004

  • Lyric in a Time of Violence

    Meena AlexanderARTICLESocial Text2002

    Social Text - 72 (Volume 20, Number 3), Fall 2002

  • Port Sudan

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEFeminist Studies2000

  • Rites of Sense

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEFeminist Studies2000

  • The Shock of Sensation

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEMeridians2000

    Research Article| September 01 2000 ‘The Shock of Sensation’: On Reading The Waves as a Girl in India, and as a Woman in America Meena Alexander Meena Alexander meena alexander was born in India, raised there and in North Africa, and educated in England. She is the author most recently of The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience (1996), and the novel Manhattan Music (1997). Her work has been translated into several languages, …

  • The Shock of Arrival

    Bindu Malieckal, Meena AlexanderARTICLEMELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of…1999

    Journal Article The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience. Meena Alexander. Boston: South End Press, 1996.223 pages. $15 paper. Get access The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience. Meena Alexander. Boston: South End Press, 1996. 223 pages. $15 paper. Bindu Malieckal Bindu Malieckal Baylor University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 24, Issue 4, December 1…

  • Rights of passage

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEInterventions1998

  • San Andreas Fault

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEAmerasia Journal1996

  • Moving World

    Meena AlexanderARTICLEAmerasia Journal1996

  • Fault Lines

    Nalini Natarajan, Meena AlexanderARTICLEMELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of…1995

    Journal Article Fault Lines. Meena Alexander. New York: Feminist Press, 1993. 240 pages. $35.00 cloth. $12.95 paper. Get access Fault Lines. Meena Alexander. New York: Feminist Press, 1993. 240 pages. $35.00 cloth. $12.95 paper. Nalini Natarajan Nalini Natarajan University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar MELUS, Volume 20, Issue 1, March 1995, Pages 143–145, https://doi.org/10.23…

  • America

    R Parthasarathy, Saleem Peeradina et al.ARTICLEWasafiri1995