The Glass Blower
Selected Poems
Published on 28. April 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
158 pages
978-1-904614-44-9 (ISBN)
Description
Keki N. Daruwalla is one of India's leading English-language writers. He has published nine volumes of poetry, the sixth of which - "Landscapes" - won him the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Asia in 1987. His Collected Poems 1970-2005 appeared from Penguin India in 2006. He is also the author of three volumes of short stories, a novella, two collections of poetry for children and a travelogue, as well as being well-known as a writer on international affairs and a prolific reviewer."The Glass-Blower" contains poems from all nine published collections as well as a body of new work. Daruwalla's poetry is characterized by the vigour and immediacy of its language, the delicacy of its land-scapes, the sharpness and sensitivity of its portrayals of both individuals and human society, and the breadth of its subject matter. This first full-length volume of Daruwalla's work to be published outside of India provides a long-overdue opportunity to become better acquainted with a poet previously encountered in the UK - in tantalizing glimpses - only in anthologies.
Reviews / Votes
[Keki Daruwalla's poems are] "rightly admired for their range, from philosophical meditation to closely observed detail. Daruwalla writes as compellingly about urban India as he does about mountain shepherds, a fish, an encounter with a snow leopard, the nature of love or poetry itself. He can inhabit historical or mythical figures...; he can conjure the migration or decline of tribes and cities; he can track the palpitations of the heart in the grip of love. Dramatic narratives describing civil strife of a kind he may have witnessed through his work in the Indian Police Service keep the company of tender poems for his daughters... Extended sequences go alongside perfectly achieved miniatures of a few lines. Above all, here is a writer whose witty, affirmative restlessness rewards the reader over and over... In spite adn becuase of everything, 'the middle lane, between / demonology and miracle' turns out to offer a wonderfully exhilarating ride."Lawrence Sail, The Warwick Review, Vol. I, No. 3More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Lancs
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
209 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-904614-44-9 (9781904614449)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Keki N. Daruwalla is one of India's leading English-language writers. Born in 1937 in Lahore, he holds a Masters degree from Government College Ludhiana. He has published nine volumes of poetry, the fifth of which, 'The Keeper of the Dead', won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1982 and the sixth, 'Landscapes', the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Asia in 1987. His Collected Poems 1970-2005 appeared from Penguin India in 2006. He is also the author of three volumes of short stories, a novella, two collections of poetry for children and, most recently, 'Riding the Himalayas' (2006), a unique travelogue of a car-trek by the author and twelve others from the Siachen Glacier in Ladakh to the easternmost tip of the Himalayas. He is also well-known as a writer on international affairs and a prolific reviewer. Keki Daruwalla joined Government service in 1958 and served for many years in the Indian Police Service. In 1974, he joined the Cabinet Secretariat, was appointed Special Assistant to the Prime Minister in 1979 and, in 1980, was part of the Commonwealth Observers' Group for the Zimbabwe elections. When he retired, he was Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee.He is a Parsi Zoroastrian.
Content
From 'Under Orion': Easy and Difficult Animals, Pestilence, Elegy I, Collage I. From 'Apparition in April': Routine, Charity: Two Faces. From 'Crossing of Rivers': Boat-Ride along the Ganga, Dawn, Vignette II. From 'Winter Poems': Suddenly the Tree, Calendar Starting with June, Notes, Rhapsody on a Hungry Night, The Wringing of Hands, Variations. From 'The Keeper of the Dead': The Revolutionary, The Mistress, The Night of the Jackals, From the Snows in Ranikhet, The Parsi Hell, To My Daughter Rookzain, The Mazars of Amroha. From 'Landscapes': Mandwa, Gulzaman's Son, Lambing, Wolf, Migrations, The Magician's Son, Crossing Chorhoti, The Round of the Seasons, A Take-off on a Passing Remark, Four for Ted Roethke. From 'A Summer of Tigers': The Glass-Blower, Childhood Poem, The Poseidonians, A Tale of Two Statues. From 'Night River': Living on Hyphens, Bird Eclipse, Epitaph for a Spanish Peasant, Contradictory You, The Stalin Epigram, Poem 8, By the River Kama. From 'The Map-maker': Old Map-maker, Agni Sutta (The Fire-Sermon), Roof Observatory, Mirror Poem, Ruminating on the Galaxies, Century-end Prayer. New Poems: To a Palestinian Poet, By-pass, We the Kauravas, Invocation.Biographical note.