Usha Akella speaks with FiLiA about her book “I Will Not Bear You Sons” (2021)  and Feminist Poetry

Usha Akella* has authored six books of poetry, one chapbook, and scripted/produced two musical dramas. Her newest book, “I Will Not Bear you Sons” (2021) is published by noted feminist press Spinifex Press, Australia with a blurb by Anne Waldman. She earned an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK. She has been published in numerous Literary journals world over with her poetry translated in many languages. She is the founder of Matwaala and hosts The POV, an interview and conversations website. Matwaala organised the first South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival in the US in 2015 which Usha co-directs with Pramila Venkateswaran. The festival’s mission is to increase the visibility of South Asian poets in the mainstream. The 2021-‘22 festival features readings by poets of color: African American, Native American, Mexican, South/Central American, Asian American and Dalit poets. She was also the founder of the Poetry Caravan in New York and Austin which takes poetry readings to the disadvantaged in women’s shelters, senior homes, hospitals. The City of Austin proclaimed January 7th as Poetry Caravan Day. Her work ranges from feminist/activist to Spiritual and all things in-between.

Madhulika: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview. Your book “I Will Not Bear You Sons” is a powerful and moving articulation of women’s rage against male supremacy. Are there any poetesses or other women who have inspired you as a poet and feminist?

Usha: Thank you for honoring my work with this interview and recognizing the need of the hour. Many women poets and poetic strains have inspired me from Kamala Das, Meena Kandasamy, Pramila Venkateswaran, Andal and Meerabai to American and UK women poets like Sylvia Plath, Sharon Olds, Kendra Allen, Lucille Clifton; and many contemporary women poets writing with flair and guts like Angela Dribben who wrote a poetry book on women in the US military.  I am inspired by women’s memoirs as well. Scholars like Neela Saxena, China Galland and Eleanor Gadon are writing vital nonfiction born from serious research that is crucial to women understanding themselves.

My feminism began when I left India and had some distance to understand my life and it became very obvious as I flowered into a poet that I was obligated to write about women’s issues. My feminism was not conscious but an organic development that spilled into my writing. Now it feels more deliberate as an obligation to the sex I am, and “I Will Not Bear You Sons” became a very conscious book.

Madhulika: What do you hope for women and girls, especially those from India, to take from “I Will Not Bear You Sons”?

Usha: The book has been met by both Indian and US women poets with appreciation. There was also a backlash a few months back from a group of men in India and they created a rampage on Twitter and Facebook which my publisher defended admiringly. A line was taken out of context, I doubt the book was read, and the work and I were marked with vile responses. It is interesting that for hundreds of years female infanticide is a reality in multiple countries and there has never been an outcry on social media about it; but the very mention of aborting male foetuses had men up in flames.

The book was not an easy one to write as all truth-telling is. I have always believed that women must tell their stories, the act of articulation is empowering. Especially, in the East where we are all taught an honor code implicitly or explicitly; we have to learn to disengage ourselves from our communities. It is vital that women are able to separate their authentic selves from the communal self and embrace their own truths. I hope my book inspires in this sense just as I have been by so many women.

Madhulika: It is sometimes difficult to cover various topics and sub-topics concerning the situation of women in one book. However, your book explores a wide range of topics- like FGM, rape, forced reproduction, and witch-burning among others. What was the process of bringing the stories of women across different times and cultures together like for you?

Usha: It enriched me and the process revealed women as one ‘tribe’ or ‘caste’ irrespective of nation or ethnicity. I felt this strongly in my bones and the writing of the book only strengthened it. Due to constraints of page count I had to leave out many more women and issues.

Madhulika: What, in your view, is unique about poetry as a means of feminist expression?

Usha: I think we turn to poetry in our direst utterances from the spiritual to the feminist and all things in between. Poetry as a vehicle offers the space to explore language as sound not just meaning or content. I was able to write the title poem with an aura of chanting or incantation to it. In ‘From a Niyogi woman to a white woman’ I was able to render an absolutely chilling theme with a childlike Dr. Seuss mask on it, a deliberate foil to showcase the poem. This is possible with poetry. Poetry is an organic form of utterance and is fabulous for women’s poetry as it can catch not just the cadence of words but the cadence of emotion.

Madhulika: Poems like “Darbar of Frogs” and “For a Certain Kind of Woman” delve into the divisions between women within the family unit. Do you think that the patrilocal* system of India has anything do with the fracturing of relationships among women?

Usha: Absolutely, the stark truth is that women are carriers of patriarchy and trans-generational misogyny. I have at least evoked it in the book though I feel I have not done it enough. I think unless women band together in solidarity, patriarchy is going to flourish.

Madhulika: Recently, the meaning of the line, "I will abort every male fetus I bear," from the titular poem “I Will Not Bear You Sons” was hijacked by men’s rights activists (MRAs) who protested against the Book online. How do you keep moving forward in the face of misogynistic backlash?

Usha: I just referred to that incident and glad you brought it up. It was not easy. I had to write a poetic truth. Personally, I would have welcomed a male child as much as a female child. I would not have done the thing mentioned within the context of a certain poem in the mouth of a certain persona voicing her truth to make a point.

When I chose to be a poet, for good or bad, I signed an invisible contract to tell my truth and accept not all will like my work, it is an occupational hazard.

Madhulika: How would you describe ‘sisterhood’ among women? How can it be created in the Indian context?

Usha: In any cultural context, India or America, women have to learn to decondition from the machinery that has influenced their consciousness and thought processes, world views, self-image etc. It is not easy, it does not happen overnight, it is a process of peeling and being willing to do it. It is an act of volition to stop participating in facades and systems that dehumanize their own selves. Sisterhood to me is the ability of women to stand by each other, celebrate joys, share sorrows and invest in equality and dignity—not on externals of perceived rank and hierarchy imbibed. Above all, sisterhood starts with women being their own best friends, forming a sisterhood within that embraces with positivity the spectrum of ‘beauty’; to feel beautiful is to know one is beautiful, as is.

Madhulika: Do you have any suggestions for women and girls out there who are interested in poetry?

Usha: Read all kinds of poetry by men and women widely, don’t be afraid to write your truth, embrace your own self as a treasure house. Thank you so very much for giving “I Will Not Bear You Sons” a voice with this interview.

* Patrilocal means a social system wherein the married couple reside with the family of the husband. In most parts of India, women reside with their husbands and in-laws after marriage.

* For more information on Usha Akella and her work, please visit https://www.the-pov.com/