This book gathers four decades of writing, published in collections from Brunizem in 1988 to Pure Lizard in 2008. It maps the poet’s trajectory, following her exile from her homeland, India, and her mother tongue, Gujarati, to the landscapes and languages of the USA and then Europe. Urgent, compassionate and inventive, Bhatt’s work forms a uniquely sustained project of reinvention and rediscovery.
Here is a chance to see Sujata Bhatt’s favourite themes strengthened by re-gathering. A common theme is language, the very stuff of poetry, given special insight by her travels and her multilingual experience. In India, she says, it is 'a sin to be rude to a book’; 'The Stare’ considers two babies, human and monkey, gazing at each other curiously, one with language, the other with... who knows? Elsewhere she considers the loss of her mother tongue, 'dead’ in her mouth but returning to her in dreams. A broad-minded, humane, imaginative book.
--Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales
Sujata Bhatt leads the reader through the bright, familiar world and on into the dark until her words pierce that darkness, offering a light that will challenge and reward. Here are poems that move confidently through that dangerous border-world between the real and the surreal, illuminating both. This book is a treasure-house of modern, magical poems.
--John F. Deane