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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Notes
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Completed 'with the assistance of a Professional Development Grant from the Copyright Agency Limited and a Poetry Mentorship awarded by the Australian Society of Authors in 2008'.
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Dedication: for mum and dad
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Epigraph: The tortoise can draw in his legs / The seer can draw in his senses / I call him illumined. - Bhagavad Gita. (translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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‘Myth Is Not Merely Decorative’ : Prithvi Varatharajan Interviews Michelle Cahill
Prithvi Varatharajan
(interviewer),
2018
single work
interview
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 84 2018;'The subject of my interview with Cahill is her second book of poems, Vishvarūpa, which is a highly unusual book by a contemporary Australian poet. In VishvarūpaCahill reanimates figures from ancient Hindu mythology. Cahill takes Hindu gods and goddesses and drops them into suburban Sydney, and into various Indian cities. The poet adopts the voices of Hindu gods in the first person, in poems such as ‘Pārvatī in Darlinghurst’ and ‘Laksmi Under Oath,’ and writes them into poems in the third (‘Hanuman,’ ‘Sita’). Vishvarūpa is an experimental rendering of myth that is well known, in its conventional form, to Hindus, but would be relatively unknown to the Australian or Western reader; it contains a comprehensive glossary for this reason. The book draws on the Mahābhārataand the Rāmāyaṇa – Hindu narrative epics – and philosophy and scriptures in the Vedas. Cahill’s own background is Christian, as she tells me, although her ancestors were Hindus before India was colonised. As such, Vishvarūpa is the poet’s attempt to reconnect to a Hindu tradition that is in fact part of her heritage. Cahill has Goan-Anglo-Indian – or Eurasian – ancestry, and cultural identity is a prominent theme in her work.' (From introduction)
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Poetry that Draws on Vectors of Experience and Movement
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 17 no. 1 2013;
— Review of Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry -
From Silence to Rhetoric
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 2 2012; Like the world itself, the textual encounter contains infinite possibilities. But how does language capture the undisclosed? This question is internalised in the process of writing but it is also fundamental to the spiritual quest. My detours as a writer, from silence to rhetoric, constitute a journey that is difficult to name, but which is triggered by discontents of one or another cause, displacing me towards different ways of seeing. The poems in my recent book Vishvarūpa permit me to explore a Hindu culture and heritage lost through the vicissitudes of colonial history. I made several journeys to India to research these poems. But what pitfalls does the poet face as ethnographer? How can myth and memory reconstruct a postcolonial identity? -
Untitled
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 5 no. 1 2012;
— Review of Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry -
Australian Poetry 2011-2012
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 57 no. 1 2012; (p. 30-46)
— Review of Amphora 2011 selected work poetry ; Edge Music 2011 selected work poetry ; Linen Tough as History 2012 selected work poetry ; Error 2011 selected work poetry ; Night Birds 2010 single work poetry ; Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry ; The Brokenness Sonnets I-III and Other Poems 2011 selected work poetry ; Outside 2011 selected work poetry ; The Welfare of My Enemy 2011 single work poetry ; This Woman 2011 selected work poetry ; Electricity For Beginners 2011 selected work poetry ; Interferon Psalms : 33 Psalms on the 99 Names of God 2011 selected work poetry ; Keeping Carter 2012 selected work poetry ; The Keeper of Fish 2011 selected work poetry ; A Sudden Sentence in the Air : Jazz Poems 2011 selected work poetry ; Concrete Tuesday 2011 selected work poetry ; The Bearded Chameleon 2011 selected work poetry ; Southern Barbarians 2009 selected work poetry ; The Yellow Gum's Conversion 2011 selected work poetry ; Four Refrains 2011 selected work poetry ; Surface to Air 2011 selected work poetry ; Knuckled 2011 selected work poetry
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Rich, Complex Indian Heritage
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 5 November 2011; (p. 32)
— Review of Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry -
Untitled
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , October no. 10 2011;
— Review of Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry -
Heather Taylor Johnson Reviews Michelle Cahill
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February vol. 37 no. 0 2012;
— Review of Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry -
Speech Music
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 340 2012; (p. 57)
— Review of Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry -
Australian Poetry 2011-2012
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 57 no. 1 2012; (p. 30-46)
— Review of Amphora 2011 selected work poetry ; Edge Music 2011 selected work poetry ; Linen Tough as History 2012 selected work poetry ; Error 2011 selected work poetry ; Night Birds 2010 single work poetry ; Vishvarūpa 2011 selected work poetry ; The Brokenness Sonnets I-III and Other Poems 2011 selected work poetry ; Outside 2011 selected work poetry ; The Welfare of My Enemy 2011 single work poetry ; This Woman 2011 selected work poetry ; Electricity For Beginners 2011 selected work poetry ; Interferon Psalms : 33 Psalms on the 99 Names of God 2011 selected work poetry ; Keeping Carter 2012 selected work poetry ; The Keeper of Fish 2011 selected work poetry ; A Sudden Sentence in the Air : Jazz Poems 2011 selected work poetry ; Concrete Tuesday 2011 selected work poetry ; The Bearded Chameleon 2011 selected work poetry ; Southern Barbarians 2009 selected work poetry ; The Yellow Gum's Conversion 2011 selected work poetry ; Four Refrains 2011 selected work poetry ; Surface to Air 2011 selected work poetry ; Knuckled 2011 selected work poetry -
From Silence to Rhetoric
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 2 2012; Like the world itself, the textual encounter contains infinite possibilities. But how does language capture the undisclosed? This question is internalised in the process of writing but it is also fundamental to the spiritual quest. My detours as a writer, from silence to rhetoric, constitute a journey that is difficult to name, but which is triggered by discontents of one or another cause, displacing me towards different ways of seeing. The poems in my recent book Vishvarūpa permit me to explore a Hindu culture and heritage lost through the vicissitudes of colonial history. I made several journeys to India to research these poems. But what pitfalls does the poet face as ethnographer? How can myth and memory reconstruct a postcolonial identity? -
‘Myth Is Not Merely Decorative’ : Prithvi Varatharajan Interviews Michelle Cahill
Prithvi Varatharajan
(interviewer),
2018
single work
interview
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 84 2018;'The subject of my interview with Cahill is her second book of poems, Vishvarūpa, which is a highly unusual book by a contemporary Australian poet. In VishvarūpaCahill reanimates figures from ancient Hindu mythology. Cahill takes Hindu gods and goddesses and drops them into suburban Sydney, and into various Indian cities. The poet adopts the voices of Hindu gods in the first person, in poems such as ‘Pārvatī in Darlinghurst’ and ‘Laksmi Under Oath,’ and writes them into poems in the third (‘Hanuman,’ ‘Sita’). Vishvarūpa is an experimental rendering of myth that is well known, in its conventional form, to Hindus, but would be relatively unknown to the Australian or Western reader; it contains a comprehensive glossary for this reason. The book draws on the Mahābhārataand the Rāmāyaṇa – Hindu narrative epics – and philosophy and scriptures in the Vedas. Cahill’s own background is Christian, as she tells me, although her ancestors were Hindus before India was colonised. As such, Vishvarūpa is the poet’s attempt to reconnect to a Hindu tradition that is in fact part of her heritage. Cahill has Goan-Anglo-Indian – or Eurasian – ancestry, and cultural identity is a prominent theme in her work.' (From introduction)
