Pascale Petit's Tiger Girl marks a shift from the Amazonian rainforests of her previous work to explore her grandmother's Indian heritage and the fauna and flora of sub continental jungles. Tiger girl is the grandmother, with her tales of wild tigers, but she's also the endangered predators Petit encountered in Central India. In exuberant and tender ecopoems, the saving grace of love in an otherwise bleak childhood is celebrated through spellbinding visions of nature, alongside haunting images of poaching and species extinction.
Tiger Girl is Pascale Petit's eighth collection, and her second from Bloodaxe, following Mama Amazonica, winner of the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize 2018 - the first time a poetry book won this prize for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry best evoking the spirit of a place. Four of her earlier collections were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.
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I used to wonder why grandmother stared so hard into the fire even after I found the cardboard box at the back of the coal-house HER GYPSY CLOTHES
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(@BloodaxeBooks, 3 September 2020, ebook, 96 pages, #ARC from publisher via @edelweiss_squad)
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The poet has been on my radar since I read her amazing collection Mama Amazonica. I couldn't resist checking out an ARC of her new collection. Like Mama Amazonica, these poems use imagery of nature and animals to explore a range of themes and ideas, this time focusing on her family and heritage, in particular her Grandmother and Indian culture. I loved every poem in Tiger Girl. The poems use a range of styles and each one was different. I didn't know what to expect with each poem and was constantly, to my delight surprised. The poet's love for her grandmother, family and her heritage shines in every word. Among my favourite poems were Her Gypsy Clothes, Her Tigress Eyes, #ExtinctionRebellion, Her Teeth, A Tailorbird Nest and Jungle Owlet.
