Name/TitleThe Bird's Bright Ring
MakerAlexander, Meena
Maker RoleAuthor
About this objectPaperback publication with plastic dust cover, titled 'A First Volume of Verse: The Bird's Bright Ring: a long poem by Meena Alexander'.
Medium and MaterialsInorganic, plastic
Organic, paper
MeasurementsH: 220 x W: 143 mm
Date Made1976
Period1970s
Place MadeIndia, Calcutta
PublisherWriter's Workshop
Publication Date1976
Publication PlaceIndia, Calcutta
Series TitleRedbird
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meena_Alexander:
Meena Alexander (17 February 1951 – 21 November 2018) was an Indian American poet, scholar, and writer. Born in Allahabad, India, and raised in India and Sudan, Alexander later lived and worked in New York City, where she was a Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Meena Alexander was born Mary Elizabeth Alexander on 17 February 1951 in Allahabad, India, to George and Mary (Kuruvilla) Alexander, into a Syrian Christian family from Kerala, India. Her father was a meteorologist for the Indian government and her mother was a homemaker. Her paternal grandmother was in an arranged marriage by age eight to her paternal grandfather, who was a wealthy landlord. Her maternal grandmother, Kunju, died before Alexander was born, and had both completed higher education and been the first woman to become a member of the legislative assembly in Tavancore State. Her maternal grandfather was a theologian and social reformer who worked with Gandhi, and had been the principal of Marthoma Seminary in Kottayam; he gave Alexander a variety of books, and talked to her about serious topics such as mortality, the Buddha, and apocalypse, before he died when she was eleven years old. Alexander lived in Allahabad and Kerala until she was five years old, when her family moved to Khartoum after her father accepted a post in the newly independent Sudan. She continued to visit her grandparents in Kerala, was tutored at home on speaking and writing English, and finished high school in Khartoum at age 13. Alexander recalled to Erika Duncan of World Literature Today that she began writing poetry as a child after she tried to mentally compose short stories in Malayalam but felt unable to translate them into written English; without an ability to write in Malayalam, she instead began writing her stories as poems.
She enrolled in Khartoum University at age 13, and had some poems she wrote translated into Arabic (a language she could not read) and then published in a local newspaper. At age 15, she officially changed her name from Mary Elizabeth to Meena, the name she had been called at home. In 1969, she completed a bachelor's degree in English and French from Khartoum University. She began her PhD at age 18 in England. In 1970, at age 19, she had what she described as "the time-honored tradition of a young intellectual ... having a nervous breakdown", where for more than a month she lost the ability to read and retreated to the country to rest. She completed her PhD in British Romantic literature in 1973 at age 22 from University of Nottingham.
After completing her PhD, Alexander returned to India, and was a lecturer in the English Department at Miranda House, University of Delhi in 1974, a lecturer in English and French at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1975, a lecturer in English at the Central Institute of English at the University of Hyderabad, from 1975 to 1977, during the National Emergency in India, and a lecturer at the University of Hyderabad from 1977 to 1979. She published her first volumes of poetry in India through the Kolkata Writers Workshop, a publisher founded by P. Lal, a poet and professor of English at St. Xavier's College, Kolkata. She also met David Lelyveld, a historian on sabbatical from the University of Minnesota, while they were in Hyderabad, and they married in 1979. She then moved with her husband to New York City. In 2009, she reflected on her move to the United States in the late 1970s, stating "There was a whole issue of racism that shocked me out of my wits. I never thought of myself as a person of color. I was normally the majority where I lived." [continues].
Subject and Association Keywordswomen's writing & literature
Subject and Association Keywordspoetry & verse
Subject and Association KeywordsAsian culture
Named CollectionGlasgow Women's Library
Object TypeBook
Object numberGWL-2024-32-2
Spine LabelMeena Alexander ~ THE BIRD'S BRIGHT WING
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved