Rain Incarnations

About This Book

A book of memorable poems about rain—in image, metaphor, symbols—that speak truths about the natural world, and the world of the human heart and mind. Exquisite poems, brilliantly translated into English from the original Odiya. ‘Bishnu Mohapatra, in these viscerally beautiful poems, unearths the spiritual in us that rain will nourish and destroy. Socrates and Ambedkar, anarchy and accident, silence and mystery, love and safety, nothingness and infinity, fever and death, all are made to fall within the metaphorical power of rain. Only a 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, its many messages and its irresistible metaphoric potential. Bishnu Mohapatra encounters rain in different locations and captures its elemental force in its diverse costumes and incarnations: as singer, dancer, mendicant, the inviting woman, the common man… At times rain takes on even political hues. Each piece in the book is a rediscovery…. The poem here is a happening, like the rain itself, unpredictable, polyphonic, and polysemic.’—K. Satchidanandan, poet, critic and president of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi