 | There is a breakthrough in these poems by Pramila Venkateswaran which is at once notable and tantalizing. In the current ascendance of multiculturalism, this fine South Asian poet teaches us that the aesthetics of human investigation -- whether interpersonal, sexual or charged with politics and culture -- may achieve something greater than mere coloration, hue or facile explication. Here we hve a poet who eschews the easy statement in her search for subtlety of sensibility. —George Wallace | Site Home With remarkable clarity and dazzling imagery these poems "walk through history, without the heaviness of a camera," bringing us moving and compassionate accounts of displacement, loss, pilgrimage and hope. Whether in her own voice, or through voices from the past, Pramila Venkateswaran speaks to us in a language that is at once deeply lyrical, humble, intense and intelligent. In Thirtha "words thud louder / than hoe hitting stones" -- a poignant sound that resonates long after closing the book. |