Songs of Mirabai

Erotic passion, rebellion, spiritual thirst, and a strong hint of early feminism, these are what make Mirabais songs irrepressible five centuries after she sang them. Mirabai (16th century India) is one of the worlds celebrated and renowned poets. Her life embedded in legend, her poems go straight to the heart. She was devoted to a god she called Shyam, the Dark One, and in lyric after lyric pursues her love with fervor. Every singer of note in India knows her songs and sings them; in the West her reputation is second only to Kabir among Indias poets. What makes Mirabai remarkable is the way she weds religious devotion with Indias old tradition of love song. These versions have been anthologized in India and the USA, worked into performances by singers and theater groups in the USA and Europe, and present Mirabai without embellishment. An introduction sets the historical context; a bibliography points towards further reading.