Where Parallel Lines MeetIn Where Parallel Lines Meet, his fourth collection of poems, Tabish Khair captures with uncanny lyrical precision, the fragile beauty of the past. This past is preserved in a country (India) he no longer inhabits, but in which lives the language of his memory. Each poem tells a storyýwhether it is in the smell of rain on earth, in the taste of mangoes ripening in the straw, in an old nurseýs tales, or in a murder in South Delhi. In poems about love, the family, landscapes, and belonging and exile, Khair returns to a time and place that hold within them all his deeply-felt experiences of both innocence and discovery, cruelty and charm. They express his acute awareness of how rooted we really are in both history and the physical world. Rich in metaphor and intensity, Khairýs poems shine with an inner luminosity and sensuality. |
Common terms and phrases
asked becoming birds bodies born brick broken chipped circle clothes colour corner dark death Delhi distance door earth emptiness face fail father feel festival fire flesh four fruit Garden Geometries glass gods grave green grey hair half hands head heart heaven holding hour India kitchen knew land language later learnt leaves light lines lives look loss lost mangoes marble mark meanings memories MICHIGAN mother move names never night once past Poem Poetry poor rain recall remember road roofs rooted shade shoulder Sitting slow smell smile smoke Snakes Sometime sound space speak stand stone stories string summer sunlight tell things thread took touch town trees turn village voice walk walls watched wind