In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick

"In Santacruz, Diagnosed Home Sick" is an award winning poem by the Indian English poet and novelist K Srilata. The poem won First Prize in the Eighth All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1998.^[1] This was the first major literary award for Srilata, who subsequently won the Unison British Council Award and Charles Wallace Fellowship for Poetry.

Excerpts from the poem

At the gift shop by the wharf

I bought an indigo octopus

all arms...

I, a newcomer to this

out-of-the-way white-hippie town

settle into the sea.

*****

My two-month hostility melts

even as I see what divides me from home

more clearly than I did from my airless plane.

The sea knows ways of connecting too,

fluidly hugging,

in long-armed benevolence,

the puzzle-edges of vast continents.

Comments and criticism

The poem has received rave reviews since its first publication in 1998 in the book Emerging Voices^[2] and has since been widely anthologised.^[3] The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English Poetry.^[4] The poem has inspired many literary works of similar name.^[5]

Online references

• Eighth National Poetry Competition 1998 - Award Winners
• K Srilata - An Interview
• | Selected Poetry of K Srilata
• India Writes - Contemporary Indian Poetry

See also

• Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry
• K Srilata - Man Asian Literary Prize
• Indian English Poetry
• The Poetry Society (India)
• "Popular Indian Poems"

Notes