The Vagabond: poems from the margin

Sale!

Original price was: ₹299.00.Current price is: ₹270.00.

Author: Vishal Prabhu
Published Date: 02/01/2025
ISBN: 978-81-978592-2-9
Paperback: Paperback
Pages: 72

Featuring an in-depth conversation between Vishal Prabhu and Tuhin Bhowal

Cover painting by Kumar Ranjan

Category:

Description

Vishal Prabhu’s poetry teeters on the edge — its syncopated stops, its torn-out wordplay, its concentrated rhythms all give the feeling of falling off and getting saved at the very same time. It is an act which is both poetic and savage, leaving the reader gasping, and asking,  how can words stab so deep? The Vagabond is so revelatory that it finds a home for the very reasons it runs wild. In poem after poem, Prabhu questions the human condition — and in delineating the answers, he becomes the creator, the chronicler, the critic, and the destroyer. Poetry, in Prabhu’s hands, is finely-sculpted, immaculately cut, and placed on each page like grenades — to explode old notions in order to create a new consciousness. Prabhu says that he writes poetry to ‘revitalise existing vocabulary’, which to him is an intrinsic part of the poet’s agenda. In The Vagabond, he goes beyond. His poetry is as much a catalogue of lived-in realities as it is a war zone of senses. He says, ‘One has to feel blessed to have been born a poet.’ We are equally blessed to be readers of his work. — Sunil Bhandari, Poet and Podcaster

Vishal Prabhu knows that the God of words is reticent. His poetry resides in the vast liminal space where perception takes on a pure form and creates the reality of abstraction. Prabhu carefully selects his words and stretches their divinity with finesse to decode the other side of the moon and being. In an interview with Prabhu, Tuhin Bhowal traces the poetic tradition of American poet Cid Corman with reclusive poet Lorine Niedecker. The impact of Vishal Prabhu’s unusual metaphors grows on you, and you cannot shake them off for a long time like a cloud of obstinate yet colourful fruit flies in summer. — Sekhar Banerjee, Poet

Educated as a chemical engineer at Bombay, Cleveland, and, for a while, at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Vishal Prabhu has over the years stewarded a forest, worked the chops at a film institute, lived in a strife zone, learnt languages, taught English, and written poetry in English and Hindi. More recently, he has managed a museum, and an art gallery, related to Himalayas and Spirituality. His first book of poems, Cutting the Edge, was published by the late Prof P Lal of Writers Workshop, in 2007. His free verse has appeared in Cerebration, Kritya, The Little Magazine, Muse India, Transom Journal, Shot Glass Journal, Ghost City Review, and Five Fleas Itchy Poetry. His haiku and senryu have been published or are forthcoming in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, Chrysanthemum, Pan Haiku Review, Triya, Under the Basho, Wales Haiku, Dadakuku, Horror Senryu, Presence, and Cattails journal, amongst more than two dozen print and online publications, in four continents. His collaborative haiga and shahai have appeared in Prune Juice, madswirl, FreshOut, and The Mamba journals. His short-form poetry has won and found honourable mentions in International Poetry Contests, besides having been anthologised and read on podcasts. When not off the grid he is @wilderness.es.poet on Instagram.