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Run for the Shadows
I am paraphrasing two poets when I say
I am doing nothing and that is poetry.
Listen.
The poems in Run for the Shadows draw you into the jagged edges and crevices of lived experience. They speak of attachment with an intensity that belies the poet’s capacity for restraint, and spill over with dread even as they draw the veil over pain. While responding to the ecological and political crises of the moment, they imagine an arc of time that encompasses both the deep past and the far future.
Written over a period of seven years, this new collection of poems by one of our most charismatic poets is an invitation into a deeply personal yet expansive world.
I am doing nothing and that is poetry.
Listen.
The poems in Run for the Shadows draw you into the jagged edges and crevices of lived experience. They speak of attachment with an intensity that belies the poet’s capacity for restraint, and spill over with dread even as they draw the veil over pain. While responding to the ecological and political crises of the moment, they imagine an arc of time that encompasses both the deep past and the far future.
Written over a period of seven years, this new collection of poems by one of our most charismatic poets is an invitation into a deeply personal yet expansive world.
- GenresPoetry
88 pages, Hardcover
Published December 1, 2021
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18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 21, 2022
I read this in December, and have been reading it again, because a good poetry collection becomes like an almanack, consultable in perpetuity.
Swami's words seem to inhabit silence. I felt fortunate that silence allowed itself to be clad in verse.
There is darkness here - as the title hints. It is not the flamboyant nihilism of adolescence, but an old, not completely fond companion.
There is also love, continuity, discontinuity and hope.
More notes on individual poems will follow.
Swami's words seem to inhabit silence. I felt fortunate that silence allowed itself to be clad in verse.
There is darkness here - as the title hints. It is not the flamboyant nihilism of adolescence, but an old, not completely fond companion.
There is also love, continuity, discontinuity and hope.
More notes on individual poems will follow.
March 19, 2022
If I have to say a few things about this collection, I will say this:
The poems are exquisitely crafted, but the craft lies just beneath the surface, often compelling the reader's attention
Its use of the language is elegant in a way that's always full of surprises. The poet truly 'makes it new.'
Most of all, a mature and original vision - of time, space, nature, life and language - is manifested in these poems, which gives them a rare strength and luminosity.
I am glad I got to it before it disappeared from the market.
The poems are exquisitely crafted, but the craft lies just beneath the surface, often compelling the reader's attention
Its use of the language is elegant in a way that's always full of surprises. The poet truly 'makes it new.'
Most of all, a mature and original vision - of time, space, nature, life and language - is manifested in these poems, which gives them a rare strength and luminosity.
I am glad I got to it before it disappeared from the market.
June 2, 2023
“Sing into my mouth
Draw out my breath as you would a ribbon
sliding it between your fingers”
— from ‘Vertical Smile’
From the beginning, this collection of poems has that rare flow that wants you to never stop reading it. Wishing it had maintained its momentum forever – I’d truly have wanted it to never end.
Draw out my breath as you would a ribbon
sliding it between your fingers”
— from ‘Vertical Smile’
From the beginning, this collection of poems has that rare flow that wants you to never stop reading it. Wishing it had maintained its momentum forever – I’d truly have wanted it to never end.
January 8, 2024
3.8| Enigmatic and Poignant
The poet's words usually drift towards darker and mature tone. It sheds light not only to oneself but the effect one's past has on others, on their future, and on their world. The poems start slowly, almost as whisper, sweeping us off our feet and then echoes their words in the back of our mind for a long time.
The poet's words usually drift towards darker and mature tone. It sheds light not only to oneself but the effect one's past has on others, on their future, and on their world. The poems start slowly, almost as whisper, sweeping us off our feet and then echoes their words in the back of our mind for a long time.
May 2, 2023
Another gorgeous book of poems by Sridala Swami. Her images, her diction, her themes are all so powerful and wonderfully articulated. I especially love the poems for her son, the one conjuring Etel Adnan and the series describing a set of dreams. Simply beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews