| Contents |
Before I had the word -- Sikh Coming from the Punjabi Meaning Disciple or Seeker -- G-d, a Portrait -- Mangifera Indica -- Language Lesson -- Heritage Day -- Leaving a Scripture -- How to Build a Body -- Notes on Midrash -- Lore -- Natural Law -- Divine Law -- The Sensuous Woman by J -- In your girlhood -- Order -- Creation Myth -- To the girl who cried over grass -- Whose Kingdom -- What My Mother Knows -- Divining -- Reform -- Notes on Midrash -- Jettison -- The Body of the Guru -- Why I ask for you to come in dreams -- What We Believed -- On Absence -- Notes on the Amorphous -- After Watching Religulous With a Friend -- Book Arts -- Inflorescence -- Casting, Pulling -- If you took out the e, you could be like the stream -- Ritual, Begging -- The Golden Reserve. |
| Abstract |
"The poems in Before I Had the Word explore the divine in the secular, mundane world, often challenging the definition of holiness. Sahni uses her religious and cultural backgrounds-Sikhism and Judaism-as springboards from which to question notions of the ecstatic in nature, sexuality and the body"-- Provided by publisher. |
| General note | "2020 Winner of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize."--Page 65, ECIP galley. |
| Access restriction | Available only to authorized users. |
| Technical details | Mode of access: World Wide Web |
| Genre/form | Electronic books. |
| LCCN | 2021017002 |
| ISBN | 9781680032574 (softcover) |
| ISBN | (ebook) |
