Dothead

By Amit Majmudar

Explore identity and culture through vivid, boundary-pushing poetry.

3.8/5 Goodreads · 143 ratings

120 pages

$18.00Save 5%

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Bookroo's summary

Dive into a world where an Indian American teenager navigates cultural identity amidst a predominantly white environment. Through a tapestry of poems, explore themes of selfhood, cultural critique, and religious imagery. From airport security encounters to a playful take on Adam and Eve, each poem offers a unique perspective, challenging norms and celebrating diversity. Discover beauty in the unexpected as these poems weave together a rich exploration of identity and belonging.

From the publisher

A captivating, no-holds-barred collection of new poems from an acclaimed poet and novelist with a fierce and original voice Dothead is an exploration of selfhood both intense and exhilarating. Within the first pages, Amit Majmudar asserts the claims of both the self and the other: the title poem shows us the place of an Indian American teenager in the bland surround of a mostly white peer group, partaking of imagery from the poet’s Hindu tradition; the very next poem is a fanciful autobiography, relying for its imagery on the religious tradition of Islam. From poems about the treatment at the airport of people who look like Majmudar (“my dark unshaven brothers / whose names overlap with the crazies and God fiends”) to a long, freewheeling abecedarian poem about Adam and Eve and the discovery of oral sex, Dothead is a profoundly satisfying cultural critique and a thrilling experiment in language. United across a wide range of tones and forms, the poems inhabit and explode multiple perspectives, finding beauty in every one.

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