Kolkata Dreams: A poet’s eye in India

Kolkata Dreams is a first collection of poems from Montreal writer K. Gandhar Chakravarty (8th House Publishing) and true to form offers the delight of a new poet’s way of seeing and being in the world — in this instance, the world of Kolkata, India.

What I liked most about this collection — more specifically, about the better poems in the collection — was Chakravarty’s eye for the poetic moment. Wandering the streets of Kolkata, in his finest moments, Chakravarty is able to see into original moments of real pathos and humour through the sometimes difficult tension of being an outsider. The poetic importance, for instance, of children throwing pebbles into a hole in a stone wall — a game that will never be marketed to wealthy Western kids — or the butchering of a small goat, or the way food offerings in a temple become food offerings for the millions of tiny creatures who carry it away, or the crazy and not-so-crazy street words of a leper.

Full report here Art&Threat