Collected Poems

At his best [Thayil’s work] is splendidly structured, both skilful and forceful…’ —Dom Moraes From his debut with Gemini in 1992 to his last volume These Errors Are Correct in 2008, Jeet Thayil has been a provocative and indelible presence in Indian poetry. Collected Poems represents more than three decades of work, starting with poems written in the early 1980s. It includes, for the first time, privately circulated, uncollected poems. Features: The collected poems of one of India’s greatest poets Jeet Thayil has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award for his poetry His previous book, Narcopolis, sold over 40,000 copies Widespread media coverage guaranteed Praise for the Author ‘I revel in Jeet Thayil’s poetry. He seems to be one of the most contemporary writers I know, and contemporary precisely because he has such command of the poetic and historical past, and because his invented language has such depth, archeological richness, and reality.’—Vijay Seshadri, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. ‘Most of Thayil’s poems chart paths to redemption, not necessarily his own; they could be the ways his various personae go. The result is a mapping that excites, exhilarates and disturbs.’—Adil Jussawalla ‘Thayil writes controlled verse, well-crafted, never obscure…’—Keki Daruwalla ‘Thayil’s poetry leaves the reader with a sense of danger, of language teetering wildly on the edge of some precipice, between centuries, between continents, between fleetingly improvised realms, suspended somewhere between history and invention, reality and nowhereness.’—Arundhathi Subramaniam ‘Thayil’s verse is eloquent, flowing, metrical, visceral. He walks on the wild side. His voice is that of the present generation.’—Arshia Sattar ‘Thayil’s poems refract his vibrant, unique and far-flung life experience through the prism of a tremendous lyric intellect.’—Philip Nikolayev