India/Postcolonial Focus
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Fall 2009 | Volume 26 | Number 1 India/Postcolonial Focus India/Postcolonial VOLUME 26 | NUMBER 1 | FALL 2009 | $8.00 Deriving from the German weben—to weave—weber translates into the literal and figurative “weaver” of textiles and texts.Weber (the word is the same in singular and plural) are the artisans of textures and discourse, the artists of the beautiful fabricating the warp and weft of language into ever-changing pattterns. Weber, the journal, understands itself as a tapestry of verbal and visual texts, a weave made from the threads of words and images. Of Empresses, Empires, and Jewels Benjamin Disraeli, several-time British Prime Minister, famously dubbed India “a jewel in the Crown of England.” A long-term political moderate of the British Conservative Party, Disraeli advocated maintaining rather than expanding British interests. He eventually promoted expansion of British power when it became clear that Russia had increased its sphere of influence beyond the Balkans into the Far East. (Readers of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim may remember these territorial disputes in the Himalayas known as the “Great Game.”) In his private correspondence with Queen Victoria, he pledged “to clear Central Asia of Muscovites and drive them into the Caspian.” One step to secure British advantage was the purchase of 44% of the shares of the Suez Canal Company with the help of Lionel de Rothchild in 1875 through a short-term loan. Disraeli exercised this act of strategic genius with the secret consent of the Queen, but without the consent of Parliament and over resistance from his own cabinet. Having secured a shortened passage to India—one of England’s most profitable territories—Disraeli also helped put the Queen on an equal nominal footing with Russian Czar Alexander II (who during his bachelor days made a state visit to England and was one of her suitors) by introducing the Royal Titles Act originally published in Punch in 1876 to Parliament in 1876. Through the Act, which was officially entitled “An Act to enable Her most Gracious Majesty to make an addition to the Royal Style and Titles appertaining to the Imperial Crown of the United Kingdom and its Dependencies,” Queen Victoria could be pronounced “Empress of India.” Adding such a resonant title to the long list of territories and protectorates over which she kept dominion signaled not only the global influence of the Crown, but also gave the Emperor of Russia a sense of England’s staying power and resource commitment to the Indian subcontinent. It was rumored that public support for the Act also stemmed from the general belief that the Queen should outrank her daughter, Victoria, the Princess Royal, who would become Empress of Germany once her husband Frederick III ascended to the German Imperial Throne (not until 1888, as it turned out, and then only for 99 days). Front Cover: Kendahl Jan Jubb, Kula Cat, 2007, watercolor, 30” x 40” VOLUME 26 | NUMBER 1 | FALL 2009 | $8.00 EDITOR 2 EDITor’s PREFACE Michael Wutz ASSOCIATE EDITORS CONVERSATION Kathryn L. MacKay Brad Roghaar Russell Burrows Victoria Ramirez 5 Leah Souffrant, “Lifting the Cup/Crossing the Border MANAGING EDITORS of Maternity”—A Conversation on the Poetics of Kay Anderson (Past) Meena Alexander Elizabeth Dohrer (Current) 35 Diane Kulkarni, “Getting Here from There”—A Conversation with Nagamani Kulkarni EDITORIAL BOARD Susan Clark, Eastern Sierra Institute ART Katharine Coles, U of Utah Fred Erisman, Texas Christian U Gary Gildner, independent author 109 Kendahl Jan Jubb, The Rhythm, the Flow and the Joy, Meena Alexander.............5 Duncan Harris, U of Wyoming with an essay by Ram Chandra Murphy Diana Joseph, Minnesota State U Nancy Kline, independent author & translator ESSAY James A. MacMahon, Utah State U Fred Marchant, Suffolk U 20 Priti Kumar, Years of Independence and Challenges Madonne Miner, Weber State U 28 Candadai Seshachari, A Cobra, a Dog, a Grandfather— Felicia Mitchell, Emory & Henry College Textured Memories of Death and Dying Julie Nichols, Utah Valley State College Tara Powell, U of South Carolina 43 Diane Kulkarni, Just a Little More Salt Bill Ransom, Evergreen State College 51 Sheila Chowdhury, Travels and Travails of an Indian Walter L. Reed, Emory U Army Wife Scott P. Sanders, U of New Mexico 60 Bryan Dorsey, Impressions from a Semester at Sea Daniel R. Schwarz, Cornell U 90 Mark Osteen, The Play of Shadows Andreas Ströhl, Filmfestival Munich James Thomas, editor and writer FICTION Robert Torry, U of Wyoming Robert Van Wagoner, independent author Melora Wolff, Skidmore College 74 Samir Dayal, Bandra Master 102 Elizabeth Eslami, Medicine Wheel EDITORIAL PLANNING BOARD 126 Ann Frantz, Samaritan Bradley W. Carroll John R. Sillito 138 Paul D. Marks, Terminal Island Brenda M. Kowalewski Michael B. Vaughan Angelika Pagel GLOBAL SpOTLIGHT ADVISORY COMMITTEE Meri DeCaria Barry Gomberg 16 Meena Alexander, Boy from Rum and Afterwards, Elaine Englehardt John E. Lowe Your Loneliness DeAnn Evans Aden Ross Shelley L. Felt Robert B. Smith POETRY G. Don Gale Mikel Vause 50 Diane Kulkarni, Waiting for Word Kendahl Jan Jubb.........109 LAYOUT CONSULTANTS 57 Anis Shivani, The Gated Bones and Crossing the Border Mark Biddle Jason Francis 122 Lyn Lifshin, The Ice Maiden’s S.O.S. poems EDITORS EMERITI 135 Rob Carney, You, You Goliath, and other poems Brad L. Roghaar LaVon Carroll 149 Will Wells, Gold Panning on the Arkansas River near Sherwin W. Howard Nikki Hansen Leadville, Colorado Neila Seshachari 150 Doug Ramspeck, Ghost Child and After the Storm EDITORIAL MATTER CONTINUED IN BACK 152 READING THE WEST E DIT OR ’ S P REFA C E Dear readers and supporters of Weber—The Contemporary West, Our journal has a tradition of letting our editing and content speak for themselves, without introductory or explanatory prefaces. Today, however, I want to give you a brief update on the future of Weber, as decreasing state funds for higher education are forcing us to re-envision our journal on a different scale. As many of you are no doubt aware, the global downturn of the economy has left deep scars on state budgets across the United States, which in turn have severely affected funding for higher education. Weber State University was hit with a double- digit retrospective budget adjustment for the 2008-09 academic year and is projected to face similar downward corrections in the years to come. WSU’s College of Arts & Humanities as the primary sponsor of Weber—The Contemporary West was required to make corresponding budget adjustments, which have already had, and will continue to have, various effects on the journal. Chief among those adjustments was that our long-standing Managing Editor, Kay Anderson—the administrative pivot of the journal—left Weber earlier this year. The issue in front of you, featuring our engaging India/postcolonial focus section and our fine art layout, is the last issue to carry Kay’s artistic fingerprint. Let me publicly say thank you to Kay for her years of extraordinary service and dedication, combined with the best wishes for the future. The journal will not be the same without her design and layout skills, and her knowledge in matters pertaining to printing and journal management. At the same time, I want to welcome Elizabeth Dohrer as our new Managing Editor into our office and look forward to working with her on future Weber issues. In addition to these changes in our office,Weber has also lost much of its annual funding for daily operations, printing and mailing, as well as the payment of author honoraria. What that means in concrete terms is that we will have to scale down our current publication cycle of three issues a year to two issues in 2010 and 2011 each, and that rhythm may likely continue into 2012 until funding is restored sometime in the future. Much as we regret this reduced publishing schedule, we want to thank Dr. Madonne Miner, the Dean of the College of Arts & Humanities, for her foresight in not shutting down the journal altogether, when numerous legitimate venues are com- peting for ever diminishing resources. Fortunately, the journal has received several external grants to support continued operation, however diminished, at the level of two issues a year. With that in mind, I want to ask our contributors (past, present, and future) not to submit any additional/future work for consideration for the time being. Since we had been working as a full-scale operation until very recently, we have, in the interest of strategic planning, built up a sizable backlog of excellent work, and this backlog was fueled further by a substantial increase in our annual submissions. We are, therefore, not able review or accept any work for the remainder of this year and a good part of 2010—and maybe even beyond—but want to publish the work we have already ac- cepted instead. Possibly, we might re-open our submission process briefly in summer of 2010 (1 June to 30 August) to help us regulate the flow of submissions in the future and make the review process more manageable for us. We do, however, want to urge you to please check our website for review details. We very much appreciate that and want to ask for your understanding in advance in not being able to return manuscripts and/or respond to inquiries. For the same reason, we will, for the foreseeable future, no longer be able to make honoraria payments to our contributors, which has long been part of the journal’s practice and philosophy. Believing that good art should receive at least a token payment (“real market value” payment being out of the question for us), we have—much in contrast to many other journals—gone out of our way to generate funds for that specific purpose.