Nine

'Anupama Raju has mastered the right simile, the apt image, the terse line. Love, poetry, journeys, places, moods, relations: her poetry is inclusive and intimate; her verbal iconography, rich with resonances. She can be passionate without being sentimental, ironic without being cynical and economic without being soulless and dry.' - K.Satchidanandan 'Urgent and passionate, these poems circle age-old preoccupations of love and longing. This is perilous terrain where the danger of cliché lurks at every turn. However, without resorting to the easy distancing strategies of irony, the poet plunges into psychologically fraught zones of "poetry, perfidy and Pandora", ready to give voice to the vulnerability and confusion attendant on such an exploration. A quiet blend of authenticity and artistry sees her through, transforming familiar tropes of blood and longing, pain and death, into the "burnt letters" of warm, pulsating verse. Anupama Raju cuts close to the bone in this debut collection of poems.' - Arundhathi Subramaniam