In My Body Didn’t Come Before Me, Kuhu Joshi recalls her struggle with spinal deformity, depression and shame that made it nearly impossible to feel at ease in her body. Her verses travel in time between childhood, when she was diagnosed with severe scoliosis, and her journey into young adulthood. They move between hospitals, schools, gardens and homes in an urgent attempt to reclaim agency. The poet asks: Who is a woman before she becomes just a body? Is there a part of her that isn’t trapped in the limitations of the physical and the conventions the world sets down for womanhood? The longing for safety and pleasure that envelops girls and women bonds them to each other in these poems. Sensual and intense, they explore desires that are sharply individual yet deeply universal. The poetic voice is in turns coolly observant and seething with rage. It brings to focus distinct moments from the past that may seem small but are defining. Parents, lovers, friends and strangers haunt the universe of this moving and exquisitely crafted collection.
About the Author
Kuhu Joshi is a poet from New Delhi. She is currently based in New York City where she is a professor of creative writing and English composition. Her work has been published in Poetry, Best New Poets 2022, Black Fork Review, Rattle, Memorious, Yearbook of Indian Poetry, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Bengaluru Review, The Punch Magazine, among others. She was a recipient of the Jane Cooper Poetry Fellowship and was awarded an honourable mention for the Academy of American Poets’ university prize in 2021. She is the co-author of the chapbook Private Maps (Human/Kind Press, 2020) and founder of the poetry workshop ‘The Terrible Joy of Poetry’.
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