Very pleased that this book of poems is now published by The High Window Press

This book opens with poems committed to the transfiguration of the ordinary: garden sheds, bus rides, daily life in Tottenham, motorways leading to escapes as urban imagery gradually gives way to the muddled ground just beyond London: woods and marshes, villages on the up and estates fallen into dilapidation.

Central to the collection are the Songs of Realisation. In Indian literature, a “Song of Realisation” is a poem that realises divinity. Here, it is used to describe a poem that celebrates some essential feature of our planet.  The nature of matter on, below and above the earth provides inspiration for a description of Epping forest, the Chauvet cave and the Hubble telescope. These three “songs” draw on mythology, archaeology and particle physics to develop their themes. However, the relationship of poetry to content is complex, and here it is informed by the poet’s desire to mediate between a material sense of language and its informative purpose. A leitmotif is the notion of Shiva as creator and destroyer, conceived as a dancer, on axis. In some analogous way, meaning is both created and destroyed in each section, while the intention is to cause thought to express itself as a dance.

Family history and childhood get explored in the poems that conclude the book.

Here is a passage from Hubble.

More on my website posting

The book can also be ordered through ebay at Tangoshiva

And see also – Shiva and my Songs of Realisation