SRI LANKAN CULTURAL POETICS: YASMIN GOONERATNE’S THE BIG MATCH

Abstract

In the literary arena Yasmin Gooneratne stands apart as a stalwart among the South Asian writers for she has brought to limelight the sensibility of Sri Lankan literatutre to the Western audience. Her poetry collections: Word Bird Motif and The Lizard’s Cry and Other Poem stand testimony to her poetic caliber. A critical awareness of Sri Lankan social reality has been recorded by Yasmin Gooneratne in her poems. She uses her poem as a political allegory to satirize the dimensions of the racial prejudice that decimate equality in the society. In the poem The Big Match, Yasmin Gooneratne has registered her sorrow over the violent communal clashes which completely disrupted the diligently built cultural poetics of the multiracial and multicultural country.