Melanie Silgardo

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Melanie Silgardo (born 1956) is an Indian poet and editor of Goan origin who currently lives in London.

Biography[edit]

Raised by Goan Catholics parents in Bombay, Maharashtra she studied under Eunice de Souza and became one of India's major English-language poets in the 1970s. With fellow poets Santan Rodrigues and Raul D' Gama Rose, she established the Newground cooperative which published their works. While studying in London, she published Skies of Design in 1985, which won the Asian Section of the Best First Book Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Until the mid-1990s, she worked at the feminist Virago Press before turning to creative writing and teaching.[1][2][3]

Education[edit]

Born in 1956 in Bombay, she studied English at the city's St. Xavier's College, graduating in 1976. She went on to earn an M.A. in English literature from the University of Mumbai in 1978.[1]

Works[edit]

Her early works were published in Three Poets – Melanie Silgardo, Santan Rodrigues, Raul d’ Gama Rose (1978).[3] In 1985, while studying at the London College of Printing, she published a second collection of poems, Skies of Design, which won the Asian award under the Best First Book Commonwealth Poetry Prize.[1][4] From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, she worked as commissioning editor for the feminist Virago Press where she consulted with clients of colour and developed a large collection of Arab women's contributions to English-language writing in Opening the Gates (1980). In 2012, together with de Souza, she edited anthology These My Words: the Penguin Book of Indian Poetry. Although she has not published any further poetry, she is still considered to have played an important role in support of women's poetry, not only for her own work but for the interest she has devoted to women's writing.[2]

While Silgardo follows in the footsteps of Eunice De Souza, her poems are far more violent, as can be seen in her poem "Bombay", attacking the development of the city.[5][6] De Souza herself finds that Silgardo's poems are "deeply emotional but never mawkish".[7][8]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Sur, Sharanya (March 2016). "The Third Generation: Melanie Silgardo and Manohar Shetty". A History of Indian Poetry in English. Cambridge University Press. pp. 328–344. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139940887.022. ISBN 9781107437265. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  2. ^ a b Bethala, Melony (June 2015). "Poetry Communities and Indian Womanhood". Verbal Arts Centre, Londonderry. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  3. ^ a b "The Modern Poets and their Background" (PDF). Shodh Ganga. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  4. ^ Papke, Renate (2008). Poems at the Edge of Differences: Mothering in New English Poetry by Women. Universitätsverlag Göttingen. pp. 72–. ISBN 978-3-940344-42-7.
  5. ^ "Bombay, Melanie Silgardo". Poetly. 30 August 2020. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  6. ^ Thayil, Jeet (2008). The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. Bloodaxe. ISBN 978-1-85224-801-7.
  7. ^ "Defining Modern Indian Poetry in English" (PDF). Shodh Ganga. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  8. ^ Singh, Kanwar Dinesh (2004). Feminism and Postfeminism: The Context of Modern Indian Women Poets Writing in English. Sarup & Sons. pp. 99–. ISBN 978-81-7625-460-1.
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