Digging...
# Digging...

"Digging..." is a popular Indian poem by the internationally acclaimed Indian English poet Gopi Krishnan Kottoor. The poem won Second Prize in the Seventh All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1997. The renowned British poet Vicki Feaver was the Chairman of the award committee. This was the second major literary award for Kottoor, who went on to win four more major poetry awards at All India Poetry Competition.

## Excerpts from the poem

    The soil I now pick
    contains fragments of the dead.
    They once saddened and happied themselves here
    turning to the sun and moon, quite puzzled
    then taking things as they came,
    for granted. This is hard brown laterite
    that I turn,
    to plant a few bright periwinkles
    stolen from the mound of one long obscure,
    dead. They should grow well here.
    So I turn out
    the millipedes curling up
    ashamed of the sudden expose
    into the dark ringstones of sapphire and topaz.
    Pinned to sudden light they have all coiled up
    in abject surrender. These things we bury back
    with pushed up soil, crushing strange roots
    going everywhere like soft nerve fibers,
    sending messages of thirst to strange
    destinations. Each scoop of mud
    brings more life to light
    lost like death underground
    doing odd jobs, ordained like saints, salient
    in dark recess drawing salary in kind.
    Mud-work is a kind of worship.
    A silent thanksgiving for a home, called earth.

## Comments and criticism

The poem has received positive reviews since its first publication in 1997 in the book Emerging Voices. The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English poetry. The poem has become very popular in Indian English literature and has been widely anthologised.

