VI. Return. Aubade -- Retreat -- Witness -- Rock -- Noor -- Spur -- Trigger -- Groove -- Fresco -- Breath -- Bed -- II. Eclipse -- Night Ferry -- Runner -- Foreigner -- Sentence -- Wind -- Paishachi -- Apostle -- Redacted -- Postscript -- Crow Hymn -- What Did I Miss? -- III. All Gods Travel -- Call If You're Lost -- Plague -- Juggler -- The Mist Shop -- Planet -- Storefront Self-Portrait -- Swimmer -- Torso -- Dust -- Terminus -- Bait -- IV. Icelight -- Bookmark -- Clock -- Glover -- Still Life with Oranges -- Descant -- Ocean Park -- Slope -- Tune -- Exit -- The Science of Detection -- Miramar -- V. Column / Vidisha -- Ritual -- Temple -- Matinee -- Gravity -- Talisman -- In this Country of Silence -- Monsoon Song -- Title -- Lesson -- Anthem -- Krishna's End -- VI. Catapult -- Departures -- Skeleton -- Under the Southern Cross -- Neighbours -- Fleece -- Mission -- Afternoon Poem -- The Harappan Merchant's Complaint -- Switch -- Roar -- Return.
Summary:
"A collection of poems about transitions and departures, eloquent in their acceptance of transience"-- Provided by publisher. "Set in an age of ecological catastrophe, Icelight eloquently accepts transience yet asserts the robustness of hope. Icelight, Ranjit Hoskote's eighth collection of poems, enacts the experience of standing at the edge--of a life, a landscape, a world assuming new contours or going up in flames. Yet, the protagonists of these poems also stand at the edge of epiphany. In the title poem, we meet the Neolithic cave-dweller who, dazzled by a shapeshifting nature, crafts the first icon. The 'I' of these poems is not a sovereign 'I'. A questing, questioning voice, it locates itself in the web of life, in relation to the cosmos. In 'Tacet', the speaker asks: "What if I had/ no skin/ Of what/ am I the barometer?" Long committed to the Japanese mono no aware aesthetic, Hoskote embraces talismans, premonitions, fossils: active residues from the previous lives of people and places. Icelight is a book about transitions and departures, eloquent in its acceptance of transience in the face of mortality. These poems transit between passion and regret, audacious exploration and contemplative retreat, doubt and belief. Hoskote navigates his poetry along deep scales of geological time and sedimented strata of historical memory, always cognizant of the perils currently confronting the planet. Icelight is informed by the unfolding scenarios of ecocide, war, and global crises"-- Provided by publisher.
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