Now a Poem Now a Forest

299.00

Author: Paresh Tiwari
Published Date: 01/05/2022
ISBN: 978-93-92494-01-7
Pages: 94
Category:

Description

Crush my fingers

Break open the skull of my pen

Tear up the poems that breathe

Those that love and heal

And those that raise their voices

 And if all else fails, stab me in the womb. Scrape out my flesh and burn it at the stake.

In one of his poems, Paresh Tiwari says, ‘A poem could be a confessional. The blank sheet of paper a two-by-two box hewn from a dead tree. This poem, however, is an asylum. The words stacked up like bricks. Holding up a roof in the middle of a vast emptiness.’ In this magnificent collection, Now a Poem, Now a Forest, Paresh Tiwari shows us what a poem can be. His journey to get here has been long and adventurous. He has immersed himself in the spirit of free verse, and that of the prose poem. But it is the gentle soul of haibun that has his heart. In exploring the quiet questions of haibun and in answering them, Paresh Tiwari offers his reader, contemplation and space. They become all that he thinks a poem might be. And more. A magnificent collection indeed.

— Hoshang Merchant

Tiwari’s poetry is filled with imaginative leaps, a rare precision of language, an unusual pairing of imagery, and wonderful juxtapositions. That’s what gives them spark and causes resonance in the reader’s ear. A reverberation in which he or she can continue the imagery, the story, even find personal meaning.

— John Brandi

 Poet, writer, artist, and editor Paresh Tiwari has been widely published, especially in the sub-genre of Japanese poetry. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published two widely acclaimed collections of poetry — An inch of Sky and Raindrops Chasing Raindrops. The second collection was the recipient of the ‘Touchstone Distinguished Books Awards – 2017’. His works are being used as cornerstones for close reading and creative discussions by readers across the world.

Paresh has co-edited the landmark international Haibun anthology, Red River Book of Haibun, Vol 1, in 2019 (with Steve Hodge) and The Shape of a Poem: The Red River Book of Contemporary Erotic Poetry, in 2021 (with Srividya Sivakumar).

He was the resident cartoonist for Cattails, a journal by United haiku and tanka society, USA and the serving haibun editor of the online literary magazine Narrow Road, a tri-annual publication.

Paresh has read his works at various literature festivals, including Hyderabad Literature Festival, Kalaghoda Festival and the Goa Art and Lit Fest. He has also conducted haibun workshops at venues across India in an attempt to dismantle the boundaries that keep the various forms of poetry and literature from sharing the same spaces.