Search for My Tongue Analysis

We like to think of this poem as a tasty surprise sandwich. It starts and ends with some pretty typical bread, but in the middle is something that you would never expect from a poem's form. It's li...

It might seem obvious, but speaking is really important to our speaker. We're not just talking about speaking to us in the poem, either. Her concern is with speaking in general, just as it is with...

Grab a mirror. Or, you know, just set your phones on "selfie" mode (no selfie sticks allowed, though). Now, hold it up to your face, open your mouth, and say "Ahhh." Congratulations—you've just f...

Here's a challenge for you: try talking without sound. It's pretty hard to do, right? By the same token, it's hard to talk about speech without also discussing sound. With all the tongues flying ar...

Brace yourselves, gang. "Search for My Tongue" is about…a search…for the speaker's tongue. So we're done here, right?Well, not exactly. It's worth exploring the way that the title includes the...

We bet that Sujata Bhatt has gone through a lot of passports in her life. Born in India, educated in the U.S., employed in Canada, the U.K., and Germany, she uses her global perspective to inform h...

Relax, spread out a beach towel, and slap on some sunscreen. The accessible free verse of stanzas 1 and 3 is as easy-going as any day at the beach. Stanza 2's Gujrati interlude might throw you for...

Sujata Bhatt got her MFA from one of the top creative writing programs in the U.S.: the University of Iowa. Yes—we said Iowa. (Source.) Bhatt has been a visiting professor of writing at universit...

Sorry—this is not the kind of tongue action you might have been thinking of.