Praise for The Kali Project
(The Kali Project) hits you with its immediate and striking relevance as protest art and underscores the point that Indian women, in every generation, have to discover their own ways of being and becoming; that the quest for a life of dignity is a Sisyphean journey. Steeped in the empowering mythos of the demon goddess Kali... bringing about the integration of the human and the divine and pointing the way out of the nexus of victimhood, into the urge to take control of ones own destiny.
Charanjeet Kaur , Academic, author of ror Image & Other Poems
(The Kali Project) brilliantly gathers the voices of silence and sadness, helplessness and fury of feminist thoughts in powerful, simple and heart-wrenching verse. The poems nestle up into the folds and hems of the mythical mother- goddess, Kali. The poems in this collection deal with an array of themes, ranging from female foeticide to kanyadaans, marital rapes, bride burning and dowry deaths. It screams against the patriarchal penchant to invade and claim the female body as if it were an instrument of pleasure to be used and discarded or a possession to be bidden, sold and burnt.
... The poems in this anthology appear equipped with ten heads, ten arms and ten legs like Goddess Kali carrying the pain and ravages of broken spirit and psyche. Each representative poem spits blood, bile and tears and is a soul-rending cry for equality and harmony. The angst one feels is both personal and universal.
Pushpa R. Menon , Teacher, Academic, Writer, Poet
The Kali Project is a unique piece of art. It stands testimony, bridging the gap between India and the rest of the world, informing the ignorant and aware alike, of the power and enduring talent of Indian women.
... I suspect all women can tap into Kalis positive energies and relate to the value of her fierce, unrepentant feminine energy. I appreciated this the most, reading The Kali Project; the convergence of women pulling together, creating, birthing, speaking without repression... We are all Kali.
Dr. Belinda Romn , Economist/Researcher/Historian
When one woman speaks her truth and is heard, the world is altered. When hundreds of these voices join together in declaring that truth, the moral axis of our existence shifts. This is the power of the collective voices of The Kali Project poetry anthology.
Rebecca Huston, Screenwriter , Prytain, the epic untold stories of the first female rulers of ancient Britain
The Kali Project left me at times in tears, the intensity of emotion outpoured by brave Indian poets was almost overwhelming. But this was not a negative experience at all. I felt a lot of hope in reading the courage and resilience within those poems. We avoid raw truth but sometimes it is necessary to wake people up.
Selene Crosier , Contributing poet & artist: As the World Burns
What I find unique in this collection is its ability to navigate reality using the cornerstones of myth and religion. Our objects of worship speak something of the substance of our humanity. The collected stories and wisdom of the ages prove to be flexible in what they admonish and offer believers. The confrontation with age-old claims on womens bodies and psyches is expressed within these poems with clarity.
Dustin Pickering , Poet, Editor, Publisher, Musician, author of The Forever Abode
The Kali Project is timely and wise in its publishing on the world stage. The world really can do with more projects like this that helps those that have never experienced a lot of hatred against them due to gender, sexual preference, color or race, to gain understanding and empathy. The Kali Project brings empowerment to women in India in a totally different way.
Hanlie Robbertse , Wishes of Hope, Chapbook of Poetry
Havertown, Pennsylvania, United States of America
The Kali Project: Invoking the Goddess Within / Indian Womens Voices
Copyright 2021 Indie Blu(e) Publishing
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used, stored in a system retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, address
Indie Blu(e) Publishing
indieblucollective@gmail.com
ISBN: 978-1-951724-06-1 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-951724-07-8 (hardcover)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021930348
Conceptualized & Edited By:Candice Louisa Daquin &
Megha Sood
Cover Design: Mitch Green
Title Page design: Tejinder Sethi
Interior Artwork: Lakshmi Tara Chandra Mohan
Interior Formatting: Christine E. Ray
Dedication
"It was all the world that told us we were women not fit to look into their eyes, / women who could not think or stand up in the middle of a room with men, speaking about how to bury dead uncles. / They said only men could talk. Only men had voices."
Arathy Asok, A Poem For My Sister
The Kali Project, Editors Introduction
Inside every woman, there is a Kali, a Hindu goddess who morphed into seven hidden beings to win a battle. Do not mistake the exterior for the interior.
Jennifer Beals
Dear Readers,
We are living in the 21st Century, yet constantly witness a continual violation of female rights; sexual and gender-based violence, threats to reproductive rights, female infanticide, domestic violence, acid attacks, prejudice against the LGBTQ community, honor-based killings, sexual assault, rape, mutilation, and child abuse. Not to mention basic inequalities like wage and healthcare discrepancies.
To voice and curate the experiences of Indian female poets and truly celebrate their magnificent achievements and brilliance in creative art, we put out a call to women writers of Indian heritage to submit work that resonated with their desire for equality; illustrating their struggles, angst, and pain in attempting to carve an equal position in patriarchal Indian society.
The Kali Project, was born. Deriving inspiration from the Indian Goddess Kali and her various manifestations. Kali represents the perfect metaphor of the great dissenter which we desperately need in Indian society, to rise above patriarchal and subjugate society, laced deeply in Indian culture for generations. Goddess Kali is an embodiment of the unfettered, uncontrolled energy which speaks to her ambivalent nature. Like nature, she can create and destroy with equal ease.
Rage against these atrocities against the female has birthed and empowered Indian womens movement for equality, liberty, and choice. Indian women are shouldering their additional responsibilities in todays times whilst simultaneously breaking the glass ceiling set by patriarchy for generations and all of this, while pushing against the rigid opinions of Indian society, en mass.
