3. About The Author
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Sujata Bhatt was born in Ahmadabad, India, in 1956.
She grew up in Pune, India, and in the United States. She received
her MFA from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, and
now lives in Germany with her husband and daughter. She is the
recipient of various awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry
Prize (Asia) and the Cholmondeley Award.
Her long poem, 'Search for My Tongue', was choreographed by
Daksha Sheth and performed in nine cities in England and Scotland,
under the title, 'Tongues Untied' by the UK based South Asian
Dance Youth Company, in 1994. 'Search For My Tongue' was
presented under the same title by the Daksha Sheth Dance
Company at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 1998.
She has published six collection of poems, including Monkey
Shadows(1991) and Augatora (2000), both Poetry Book Society
Recommendations; and A Color for Solitude (2002), which deals
exclusively with the life and work of the German painter, Paula
Modersohn-Becker. Her latest collection, Pure Lizard, was published
in 2008 and was shortlisted for the 2008 Forward Poetry Prize (Best
Poetry Collection of the Year).
She has translated Gujarati poetry into English for the Penguin
Anthology of Contemporary Indian Women's Poetry, and has also
translated poems by Günter Grass and Günter Kunert. Her
translation from the German, Mickle Makes Muckle: poems, mini
plays & short prose by Michael Augustin, was published in 2007.

4. Sujata Bhatt

5. Poetry Collections
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1988 Brunizem Carcanet Press
1991 Monkey Shadows Carcanet Press
1995 The Stinking Rose Carcanet Press
1997 Point No Point. Carcanet Press
2000: Augatora. Carcanet Press
2002: The Colour of Solitude (Second edition).
Carcanet Press
• 2008: Pure Lizard. Carcanet Press

6. Awards
• 1988 Commonwealth poetry prize
(Asia) Brunizem
• 1988 Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize Brunizem
• 1991 Poetry Book
Society Recommendation Monkey Shadows
• 1991 Cholmondeley Award
• 2000 Poetry Book
Society Recommendation Aguatora
• 2000 Tratti Poetry Prize

7. The Peacock
His loud sharp call
seems to come from nowhere.
Then, a flash of turquoise
in the pipal tree
The slender neck arched away from you
as he descends,
and as he darts away, a glimpse
of the very end of his tail.
I was told
that you have to sit in the veranda
And read a book,
preferably one of your favorites
with great concentration..
The moment you begin to live
inside the book
A blue shadow will fall over you.
The wind will change direction,
The steady hum of bees
In the bushes nearby
will stop.
The cat will awaken and stretch.
Something has broken your attention;
And if you look up in time
You might see the peacock turning away as he gathers
his tail
To shut those dark glowing eyes,
Violet fringed with golden amber.
It is the tail that has to blink
For eyes that are always open.

8. Summary
Here she appreciates the royal, fascinating, mind
blowing, precious, magnificent , gorgeous things of a
peacock. basically a peacock is referred as India's animal
so all that she appreciates is of India. the word
mentioned of "then, a flash of turquoise in the pi pal
tree" it means of a color that is bluish- green, named
after a precious stone. so the whole poem is talking
about her country INDIA. and she illustrates in her own
words that if you are reading an interesting book and
some thing just irritates like of a wind, a steady hum of
bees, or the bushes near nearby, or the cat that
stretches " will break free your attention on what you
were reading is to take a view of the peacock.