Analyzing Cultural Memory through Visual Imagery in the Select Poems of Arun Kolatkar

Abstract

Indian English poetry has increasingly engaged with questions of memory, identity, and cultural continuity, particularly through visual and spatial representations. Arun Kolatkar, one of the most influential modern Indian poets writing in English, adopted vivid visual imagery to evoke layers of cultural memory embedded in everyday life, religious spaces, urban landscapes, and marginalized voices. The paper analyzes how cultural memory is constructed, preserved, and questioned through visual imagery in select poems of Arun Kolatkar, with special reference to works such as Jejuri, Kala Ghoda Poems, and Sarpa Satra. The findings indicate that Kolatkar reconfigures cultural memory by presenting fragmented, ironic, and often ambiguous images that challenge idealized representations of Indian culture. Instead of nostalgic reconstruction, his poetry foregrounds a dynamic and contested cultural memory shaped by urbanization, social marginalization, and changing belief systems. The paper contributes to existing academic discourse by highlighting visual imagery as a central aesthetic and ideological strategy in Kolatkar’s poetic engagement with cultural memory.