Lantana Strangling Ixora

Shortlisted for the Guyana Prize, Best Book of Poetry, 2012

This collection is as much about love and people in and out of relationships as it is about origins and the process of estrangement. The lantana is a flower of South American origin, and the ixora of Asian origin. The lantana, a creeper that grows profusely, often engulfing other plants, provides a ready metaphor for the consciousness of the Americas overcoming that of India in the Americas–the mainstreaming and divesting of yoga from its Indian origins being the most visible manifestation. This collection ranges widely in its geographical and historical concerns, from Canada to Guyana to India and places in between, exploring the contradictions in our lives: familial influences, terrorism, literature, politics, race, and the power of language and representation. As always in Persaud’s work, love is ever present. This is a collection that displays mastery over nuances of language, and is at once quirky and humorous as it continues an engagement with the theme of “place as muse.”

AUTHOR

Sasenarine Persaud

Sasenarine Persaud is a Guyana-born Canadian American author of Indian ancestry and originator of the term “Yogic Realism.” He has published essays in Critical Practice (New Delhi), World Literature Today (Oklahoma), and Brick (Toronto) on this subject. His lifelong engagement with Indian philosophies, art, and languages and an awareness of his community’s 184 years domicile in the Americas, clearly distinguishes his craft.

Persaud is the author of 15 books of prose and poetry, including Canada Geese and Apple Chatney (stories), the title story of which is anthologized on both sides of the Atlantic and included in The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories, An Anthology of Colonial and Postcolonial Short Fiction, and the Journey Prize Anthology: Short Fiction from the Best of Canada’s New Writers; two ground-breaking novels, Dear Death and The Ghost of Bellow’s Man, and his signature, raga-infused poetry collection, A Surf of Sparrows’ Songs, which alternates between Miami, Toronto, Guyana’s Atlantic coast and India. His poetry has appeared in several anthologies including The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse.

Reviews

“In this collection, Persaud’s elegant poems, though they linger heavily on loss, are quietly reassuring.” —Bostonia

“[A] bit like reading TS Eliot mixed up with Rabindranath Tagore.” —The Halifax Herald Chronicle

“Persaud . . . offers the reader a diverse and wide-ranging collection of poems, all of which are explored with his signature wit and skilful mastery of language.” —Wasafiri