• On The High Wire

    About The Book

    “How timely the invisible rain appears to be / when we have stopped expecting it,” says Siddhartha Menon: words that might equally apply to this substantial and somewhat unexpected collection that establishes him as a major Indian poet.  The vocabulary is often unfussy and, despite the book’s title, the form carries no hijinks, but every line, you feel, has been tested, every line holds in the solitary practice of the mind.  Here place is not a romance of names but an ethics of speaking and a scrupulous attention to both the immediate and the far away, the ants on a teaspoon or the spacecraft on the edge of Saturn, the sentry who “could be” a poet or the unfortunate politics of the state that holds us and others captive, an anonymous bellboy or the great actor Irrfan Khan who could make himself anonymous.  Some of the most dazzling poems in the book are sequences; always, we can be sure that following Menon’s thought through will reward us and leave room for us.  It’s like a magic trick with no sleight of hand.  The “certitudes” may be “green and gleaming” but the “eyes betray the sting of wisdom”.

    – Vivek Narayanan

    $16
  • WALK

    About the Book

    This is a breath-taking experiment involving three poets, four languages, a pandemic and a million miles of migration. You will not find a bleeding heart here nor any cheap sentiment. Here is a watchful eye and a savage tongue. Here is a calligrapher’s pen and a bow to Ezra Pound. Mustansir Dalvi’s poetry has always meant something more to me than the best words in the best order. Here he shows us the order of things in a disordered world and we are humbled by this act of bravery and of empathy.

    Jerry Pinto, poet and translator

    Asylum, I want a poem and other poems

    First published as an e-chapbook by Yavanika Press in that dreadful plague year, 2020, Mustansir Dalvi’s brilliant and memorable WALK is an act of homage to the suffering of those millions of Indians, already living precariously between village and metropolis, who were turned into migrants in their own land – forced to walk thousands of miles home, on what was effectively a death march, by a callous State and a society that improvises rather than systematising effective forms of compassion.

    WALK now returns, under the Poetrywala imprint, as a surging polyphony. Dalvi is joined in this splendid quadriga of a book by Hemant Divate and Udayan Thakker, who have translated these poems into Marathi and Gujarati respectively; the author has rendered himself into a vibrant Hindi. This relay of versions is completed by Sudhir Patwardhan’s painterly testimony to the anguish of the Covid refugees caught up in a humanitarian catastrophe. A poet and translator, Dalvi infuses his writing with multilingual resonance and quicksilver diversity, shuttling among idioms and registers, in-group argot and makeshift patois. As befits the gravity and universal urgency of its subject, this book will reach readers in four languages simultaneously, saying to them, to us: Never forget!

    Ranjit Hoskote, Poet, art critic and cultural theorist

    $20
  • The Tattooed Teetotaller and other wonders

    About the Book

    We say mind the book, it’s out of control.
    But it’s author says
    ‘Nonsense verse helps its writers escape their resident demons,
    setting them free to deal with the more transient ones of mischief.
    At time I’ve tried to use that freedom to highlight contemporary absurdities,
    at other times to write about those of a not-too-distant colonial past.
    Readers will find that not everything here is nonsense, like the poem below.
    But I hope they also find that however disastrous our falls into folly may be,
    they can also be luminous’
    Like Dictators
    Rats are strict in their regulations.
    Like dictators they regulate
    meals and nations
    along lines of bite.

    $18
  • Abstract Oralism

    About the Book

    Yamini Dand Shah, with this new book Abstract Oralism, captures both precisely and remarkably the mysterious and elusive world of the Kachchh of Western Gujarat. Her metaphors and similes transport the reader towards this ancient terrain where Indus Valley peoples once flourished. Conceptually advanced and sophisticated, the poetry of this book causes us to reconsider our place in the world: in the light of the author’s extraordinary perception that translates earthly experience into a uniquely beautiful expression of the human condition.

    -KEVIN MCGRATH, Poet Laureate, Harvard University

    In the ‘Abstract Oralism’, Yamini reveals the beguiling mythic and mimetic history of the dangerously luminous, sensuous, and ephemeral beauty of the desert of Rann of Kachchh leaving us astonished and redeemed at once. ‘Sifting through soiled pages of an anti-modern, abridged dictionary’ of memories, she weaves embroidered tales of palaeolithic biographies of forgotten people in an experimental genre of speech-therapy with fierce emotional power. By turns poignant, playful and ironic, Yamini’s deceptively layered linguistic dreamscapes break new ground in experiencing hallucinatory minimalism in poetry. A mesmerizing debut!

    -ASHWANI KUMAR, Poet, Writer and Public Policy Researcher

    $20
  • Hereafter

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Hereafter is astonishing as a first volume, each poem adroitly handled with the freshness of youth and  the ability only maturity grants. It could stand out with the best  poetry on equal terms . I found each poem tightly structured, with not a word out of place. Only a gifted poet assured of her abilities would attempt to ‘tease  the contours of a poetic line… to coax it out of its taut shell.’  Stuck in my memory are the lines from an anti war poem:

    where every supper could be the last / where every candle is lit for the dead / where every prayer is a cry of the living / where every string is tuned to a requiem.

    -Keki N. Daruwalla

    Sophisticated, intelligent poetry for an international readership, marked by a flair for history and genuine compassion for sentient beings.  Sabitha is as much at home with the ordinary as she is with

    the bizarre:

    At two at night

       a bloated Lord Krishna

       floats up, dead

       in the Yamuna. 

    One is not likely to forget such lines in a hurry. What a debut! Where does she go from here? I’m already looking forward to her next book.

            -Gabriel Rosenstock

    $16
  • The Missing Rib (PB)

    About the Book

    This is a dark, powerful, pulsating collection of poems, the effect of which continues to reverberate, disturb and shock one out of one?s complacency long after one has finished reading them.. The Hindu (reviewing So Many Births) Satchidanandan’s poetry is an irresistible mix of the real, surreal, intellectual, sensual, and spiritual. Satchidanandan does not shy away from asking deeper existential questions -of being, freedom, love, compassion, nature, language, death Shanta Acharya (reviewing While I Write in Modern Poetry in Translation) Satchidanandan’s ‘I’ tells stories about itself, and like all good story-tellers, by telling its own story, his ‘I’ ends up telling stories about others as well. There is an ethical bent in this aesthetic enterprise, where fondness and empathy towards others enter your lines and transform your poetry the way they once transformed your life. Manash Bhattacharya (reviewing While I Write in Biblio) K. Satchidanandan is definitely not a poet who keeps aloof from the world. He is a poet on a journey.. Poetry for him is a cry against all walls? It is his cosmopolitanism that makes Satchidanandan interesting beyond India. Dr. Wolfgang Kubin (Reviewing the German collection, Ich Globe Nicht an Grenzen in Orientierungen: Zeitschrift zur Kultur)

    $40
  • Greece, a modern Odyssey: selected essays

    About the Book

    This outstanding collection of personal essays, sharp analysis, unusual photographs, and poetic reflections focuses on Greece and its people as they found themselves in the eye of a storm that continues to shake Europe and the world. Ranging widely from economics and politics to social and environmental issues, and from cultural and diasporic interactions to literature and the arts, the essays and other materials have been put together in ways that attract, inform, and challenge the reader no matter where she or he may reside. Presenting a roster of distinguished contributors, the editors offer a variety of perspectives, points of information, and allusions, which substantially add to ongoing debates on how individuals and groups may proceed in challenging circumstances. Greece: A Modern Odyssey is being published by Mumbai-based Paperwall Media & Publishing, in memory of the late Hatto Fischer, the German poet and philosopher who lived in Greece and brought this volume together with his wife Anna Arvanitaki.

    $24
  • River Wedding

    About the Book

    The hundred pages of this collection give scope enough to show the generosity of Amlanjyoti Goswami’s perception of the world. This is both intimate and ambitious, paying attention to the gentle nuances of family life without losing sight of the disturbing ways that history unfolds. Moments of revelatory strangeness are often entered through a child’s viewpoint – ‘sunlight talks to Zenzi…’ – but the effect never sentimental. The whole collection could be dedicated, in the delicate wording of a poem simply titled Lunch: ‘To life, more life. // The kind that,like a child, / takes in a morsel, when nobody’s looking.’ The deeper messages speak quietly, but all the more convincingly for that, and the points of arrival are not grand visions but ‘a fine ordinariness’. What renders this quality fine is Goswami’s sure and economical way with language – ‘we wear the dusk of sorry news’, or the blind flautist’s sensation of ‘the grain in the wood, the press and leave / of my fingers’. There is no postcolonial uncertainty in this marrying of Indian perspectives and the English language, whose literary heritage is graciously acknowledged, with nods to Soyinka and Achebe, to Walcott and even (with a healthily wry smile) to Matthew Arnold when he turns up in a second-hand bookstall in Chandni Chowk. Rather, there is a generous welcome to the world – with the freshness of an outsider’s view sometimes, but always with a sense of hospitality. -Philip Gross

    $16
  • Coconuts on Mars

    About the Book

    Indran Amirthanayagam has been writing poems that will outlive his time, and they have been translated already into several world languages. These new poems both look bravely into the future as they turn back, at the same time, to the remembered mists of his childhood. Indran embraces various contradictions in his capacious heart and mind, that have enabled him to love in many languages, to cross all sorts of borders, geographic, linguistic, and political, and to champion liberty of expression wherever he goes. Indran?s is a journey beyond limits, and these poems take you much of the way along with him on his restless exploration of his multiple worlds.
    -Shashi Tharoor

     

    $12
  • Architecture of Flesh

    About the Book

    Ra Sh’s poems stand out in the world of Indian poetry in English because of their uniqueness in attitude and style. He has an eye for apt metaphors and ample adjectives that articulate the semantics of violence that have come to define our times: political, patriarchal and communal. The intensity of his concern perfectly matches the sharpness of his images. It is no wonder that his poems often seem like a ritual procession of self-flagellating devotees of a heartless god doling out selected torments or like aesthetic lessons in the anatomy of gore exposing the visceral asymmetries of existential angst. And during all the painful coitus, his poetry sings, yes, sings in many stabbing tongues invoking conversations in blood.
    – K. Satchidanandan

    $12
  • The Painter of Evenings

    About the Book

    Your poems are exceptional… My admiration grows for your poems – Jayanta Mahapatra.

    Kottoor is a poet who has discovered his own voice distinct from that of his ancestors or his compeers. ? Dr Ayyappa Paniker

    I earnestly believe that you are one of the most committed and ardent lovers of poetry. At my age (92), I would like to say—God bless you! With deep affection and admiration. – Shiv K Kumar

    Gopikrishnan Kottoor is one of the most exciting voices of the 90?s.- Chandrabhaga

    Thoroughly localized, yet universal. ? The Quest

    $20
  • COLLECTED POEMS

    About the Book

    ?Mahapatra?s is an elite art, aimed at a small, discriminating readership.?- Bruce King

    Jayanta Mahapatra is indisputably the most innovative, progressive and Anglophile poets of modern India. He is intrinsically touched by the stark realities of our country, and writes instinctively about ? hunger, myths, traditions, customs, rituals, love, passion, anger, frustration, sex, the self and the eternity, the socio-cultural diversity with adroitness. His extant work exudes post ?colonial leanings and spirit invariably. Post- colonialism refers to those theories in texts, political aspirations and modes of activism that spur to challenge structural inequalities and to establish social justice. Mahapatra?s poetry unravels many facets of post- colonialism as haunting past, search for identity and roots. Mahapatra writes to enliven the native tradition protesting the former colonizers and establishing national identity and integrity. He evokes the sense of Indianness both in content and form through his poetry relentlessly. His symbols and images are, however, evocative, suggestive and pivotal for linguistic versatility.- Mirza Sibtain Beg

    $60
  • Tips for Living in an Expanding Universe

    About the Book

    E. V. Ramakrishnan’s unique voice has reached another level of intensity in this new book of poems. He does not hark back to lost utopias or invoke dystopias. His poetry rips apart language to reach down to the palpable truth of experience. It aims at nothing short of the impossible: to hold together the ever expanding universe in an epiphany of the immediate.
    -H.S. Shivaprakash

    E. V. Ramakrishnan?s poems spin across metaphor and statement with fluid ease, often veering at the edge of axiom. There is an ability to combine elegy and irony, image and indictment, to blur the distinction between the mundane and the make-believe while never losing the sharp knife-blade of moral concern.
    -Arundhathi Subramaniam

    $12
  • Collected Poems

    About the Book

    ” … a poet who has been a quietly enduring presence in the country’s literary scene for five decades … ” “It was my first realization that a gaze unclouded by sentiment could evoke something truer than sympathy. That an unspoken poignancy could lie in the act of not averting one’s gaze. That poetry could lie in a simple unblinking intensity of attention.”

    $16
  • Elsewhere Where Else

    About the Book

    Sampurna Chattarji and Eurig Salisbury are two of the ten poets from India and Wales who took part in a project organized by Literature Across Frontiers and partners to mark the 70th anniversary of independent India. The poets collaborated to create new work and translate each other into their respective languages during a series of residencies in both countries, alternating between the hustle and bustle of Indian metropolises and the peace and quiet of welsh towns and rural locations. The project addressed, in a myriad ways, the theme of ?independence?. In artistic practice, independence means freedom to think, act and create beyond the confines of convention and economic necessity. But successful independence-of communities and individuals alike-also involves co-independence, collaboration and understanding across divides and differences. At a time of global change which sees increasing friction between identities, we hope this project has helped to open up a unique dialogue and formulate new narratives and ideas which both uncover and move beyond histories.

    $20
  • Absent Muses

    About the Book

    Cities So tell me. Is it hot? Does it rain? Are there places you can sit on a sunny day, away from the crowd? Is it beautiful? Is it loud? What do the streets smell like? What do the women wear? Are they pretty? Do you love it? Could you leave?

    $10
  • Body Language

    About the Book

    Elegy One by one they fall away, Some gently like brown leaves. Others with gnarled roots Hold fast to their Bleak and emptied plot To which no water or salt, Prayer or miracle can Grant another lease. But sure as the turning days, There will be

    $10
  • For Hire

    About the Book

    At the Seminar The door creaks like the wail of some small animal. I am terrified: the present speaker like the ones before him will make me aware of how little I know. Both of us open our mouths at the same time, he to read his paper, I to yawn.

    $12