Parasitic Oscillations: Poems

by Madhur Anand

Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Finalist
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book


"Anand's attention to and ability to evoke explicit, exponential beauty in scientific and natural form are simply stunning. . . . Anand's debut is in every measure a triumph." – Publishers Weekly

A stunning new collection of poems that examine various aspects of living and practicing as both a poet and scientist in the Anthropocene during a time of unravelling.

The poems in Madhur Anand’s second collection interrogate the inevitability of undesired cyclic variation caused by feedback in the amplifying devices of both poetry and science.

There are several interacting the poet’s own work between the arts and the sciences, living between North American and Indian cultures, as well as examining contemporary environments through the lag effects of the past. Weaving in a close reading of A.O. Hume’s The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds (1889), anticolonial, intertextual, feminist, electronic, and diasporic relationships are examined against the backdrop of unprecedented ecological collapse. Here, birds are often no longer direct subjects of metaphor, but rather remain strange, sometimes silent, a kind of menacing and stray capacitance, but can still act as harbingers of discovery and hope.

Fluctuating through extreme highs and lows, both emotional and environmental, while examining a myriad of philosophical and ethical dilemmas, Parasitic Oscillations is an enlightening, thought-provoking, and profoundly beautiful work that both informs and questions.

Genres: Poetry, Nature

128 pages, Paperback

Published March 22, 2022

About the author

Madhur Anand's debut book of creative nonfiction "This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart" (2020) won the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her debut collection of poems "A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes" (2015) was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and named one of 10 all-time "trailblazing" poetry collections by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Her second collection of poems "Parasitic Oscillations" (2022) was also a finalist for the Trillium Award for Poetry and named a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. "To Place a Rabbit"(Knopf Canada) is her first novel. She is a professor and the director of the Global Ecological Change and Sustainability Laboratory at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

Reviews

[Alycia · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the opening poem, I knew I would be swept away by this collection. Madhur Anand is a professor of ecology and sustainability, and the language in these poems – which encompass many styles and formations – weave together scientific observation, theoretical texts from her work in the environmental humanities, fact/figures and found poetry, archival explorations, and visual aesthetics and images.

Some favourite lines –

'Every line of thought
is an oscillation we must enter' ("Mind Compression")

*

'for all her life my mother lived
in someone else's dreams, like pending rain' ("Mother Says I Talk Like A Son")

*

'I met a girl in the process

of enumerating the aggression of cichlids
and yet another who watched bees pollinate paper

flowers. One girl stood and watched the Southern blot until
the sun rose. And then I saw there were girls everywhere.' ("Animal Behaviour")

*

'That evening as the sun set on Robin Lake I heard
a bird I did not know on a nearby branch. I looked
for signs. There was a large black spot at its chest and I
thought that could be knowledge itself.' (from the long poem, "Slow Dance")

[Camille Dungy]

I devoured this book in a two-hour sitting, fascinated by the way Madhur Anand writes about the nineteenth-century egg and bird research collections of A. O. Hume. Anand visited natural history museum research collections in the U.S. and U.K. as well as field sites in India. She writes into mathematical simulations of birdsong and talks back to letters and diaries kept by A. O. Hume. The songs and feathers and flight patterns and habitats of extinct and extant bird species flutter through these pages, and Anand’s own life (and, perhaps, our own) is in these pages too. Parasitic Oscillations is a fascinating medley of science, philosophy, and art.

Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2022/01/new...

[Salty Swift · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's impossible to turn away from a beautiful collection of poems and scientific observations focused on birds.

[Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly creative set of poems and visual poems based upon the journals a British ornithologist in Late 19th century India. The book contains erasure poetry from modern science journals, and also some pictures of bird specimens from an Indian museum.

The collection is experimental: some material works, other would benefit from more experimentation to get things right.

Be forewarned: this is moderately high on the poetry opacity scale.

[Asia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

I think I liked this. I'm not a massive poetry person, but I enjoyed reading this collection. There were a few "big brain energy" moments where I couldn't tell if the poem is meant to be confusing or I'm just not smart enough to get it.

Anyways, this was a really interesting collection, one I will probably revisit!

[Corissa Gay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Isn't it marvelous that nature is a poem in and of itself? Doesn't it make you feel in touch with the divine to know there's poetry in science, science in poetry? This collection cradled my heart delicately in its hands as though it were a bird's egg.

[Liz Cal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really appreciated the imagery in these poems and the unique incorporation of scientific and naturalistic writing. I have it in my permanent collection and plan to reread

[Gabrielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fell a bit less in love with this one and more into curiosity, still brilliant never the less!

[Alissa Hattman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A profoundly beautiful long-form poem that explores species loss through layers of text, image, science, and sound. A wonder to behold.

[Penn Kemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tender, intense and fascinating collection that celebrates birds through close readings in natural science, texts from Anand's papers on the environment as well as lyrics and found poetry across cultures.