NEGOTIATING HERITAGE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN THE POETRY OF IMTIAZ DHARKER AND MONIZA ALVI: A STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIAN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE POETRY

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative literary analysis of the poetic works of Imtiaz Dharker and Moniza Alvi, focusing on their distinct articulations of diasporic identity within the framework of contemporary South Asian English language poetry. It posits that while both poets engage in a fundamental negotiation of cultural heritage, their methodologies and thematic resolutions diverge significantly. Dharker's oeuvre, examined through poems such as "They'll say: 'She must be from another country,'" "Purdah I," and "Minority," demonstrates a synchronic and politically resistant stance. Her speakers consciously inhabit interstitial, hybrid spaces, defiantly reclaiming outsider status to critique patriarchal and nationalist orthodoxies. Conversely, Alvi's poetry, as evinced in "Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan," "The Sari," and "Arrival 1946," employs a diachronic, genealogical mode of inquiry. Her work meticulously reconstructs familial history and material inheritance, resulting in a poetics of ambivalent suspension and unresolved belonging. Through this comparative framework, the study argues that together, Dharker and Alvi delineate the expansive spectrum of diasporic subjectivity, from the assertive creation of new, hybrid identities in the present to the poignant, unresolved dialogue with a fragmented past. Their collective work affirms that cultural identity is not a static possession but a continuous, strategic, and deeply contested process of negotiation.