Synopsis

Tamil, a World Classic Language, has a long history of culture and its literature dates back to even before the Common Era. The ten anthologies and eight long poems of Sangam age from 100 B.C to 250 A.D are the oldest and most distinguished body of secular poetry extant in India. Women poets were a strong presence in Sangam literature of yesteryears and their scholarship is proved that total of 154 of the 2831 poems carry women's signatures, The legacy include the much quoted Aavaiyar, Kaakai Padiniyar, Aadhi manthiyaar, Kuramagal Ilaveyini, Veri paadiya kaamakkanniyar, Kavarpendu, Nakkannaiyaar, Nappasalaiyar, Paari Magalir, to include the important.

Leena Manimekalai, the contemporary Tamil woman poet enters the cavern of her own mind and finds there the scattered leaves not only of her own power but of the tradition of her foremothers that might have generated that power. The body of her precursor's art, and thus the body of her own art, lies in pieces around her, dismembered, disremembered, disintegrated. “My mirror is the door” remembers it, becomes a member of it, joins it, rejoins it, and integrates it in order to achieve her own integrity, her own selfhood. (Inspired by last parable on the sibylline leaves of Mary Shelley’s story)