Tanya Mendonsa
HarperCollins
Rs. 299
pp 148
ISBN: 8172239165
Blurb
Conceived of as a journey within a book, a journey in both geographical and spiritual terms, The Dreaming House is an anthology of poems in two parts. The first, titled ' The Voyage Out', is composed of poems on people the author has met – whether in real or imaginary life. The second, 'The Country Beyond', focuses – almost in a trance of delight – on the natural world and its ability to change human beings. Tanya Mendonsa's language, by turns poignant and muscular, is lyrical and contemporary, yet it is obvious that she is rooted in poetic traditions going far back in time. Here is a strikingly individual, strong and joyous voice raised in poetry, graced with rare charm and insight.
Review
Sensuous feast Hindu
Poems that are painted with an artist's brush, bring many motifs together on a single canvas, says Smitha Rao
Remember Arundhati Roy's famous claim post-Booker that all of The God of Small Things just flowed continuously onto paper and there wasn't a word as much to be edited or re-written later? Debutante poet Tanya Mendonsa gushes similarly, “… like a water source unblocked, the words flowed onto paper, as effortlessly as the sweet air…” Seems then that creativity rushes out unbridled, chiselling is so bourgeoisie.
Changing locales
The Dreaming House, a collection of a sizeable volume of poems, lends credence to suchlike claims with its raw tone and tenor, no prolix prose here. A new entrant on the canvas of Indian poetry, Tanya Mendonsa has oscillated from Kolkata to Paris to Goa with her exhibition of paintings but it was the Goan village of Moira where she found her voice and calling, manifest as The Dreaming House. Any work of art like a painting, sculpture or even poetry, is really about engaging and teasing the imagination of the viewer/reader and her interpretation, so here is Mendonsa's elegiac painting on the book cover and her writing. Here then in brush strokes is this woman with dark circles under her eyes and slender fingers, beneath the moonlight, time passing, a unicorn there, and in pen strokes on the pages is this war within, against a sinister world which divorces you from the green, forever.
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