Rain Incarnations

A book of memorable poems about rain-in image, metaphor, symbols-that speaktruths about the natural world, and the world of the human heart and mind. Exquisitepoems, brilliantly translated into English from the original Odiya.'Bishnu Mohapatra, in these viscerally beautiful poems, unearths the spiritualin us that rain will nourish and destroy. Socrates and Ambedkar, anarchy andaccident, silence and mystery, love and safety, nothingness and infinity, feverand death, all are made to fall within the metaphorical power of rain. Onlya poet can take an idea to these places and these depths.'-Akeel Bilgrami,Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA'No Indian poet can afford to ignore the many shapes that rain takes, itsmany messages and its irresistible metaphoric potential. Bishnu Mohapatraencounters rain in different locations and captures its elemental force in itsdiverse costumes and incarnations: as singer, dancer, mendicant, the invitingwoman, the common man....At times rain takes on even political hues. Eachpiece in the book is a rediscovery....The poem here is a happening, like therain itself, unpredictable, polyphonic, and polysemic.'-K. Satchidanandan,poet,critic and president of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi