Tiny Extravaganzas

by Diane Mehta

Tiny Extravaganzas, Diane Mehta's fiercely lyrical new collection, works the American sentence to its limits. Mehta's poems are miniaturist examinations of art, aging, literature, grief, parenting, the sublime, labor, and faith. She chases rhythm, rhymes with wit, and upends formal verse with phrasing that moves like jazz against and within tradition. Art is both anchor and a framework for understanding the world, and each poem is an opportunity to have a conversation with the reader and with art and other artists. Her poems vary from small, contemplative musical interludes to epic poems about collective suffering. Mehta's refined and propulsive poems come with an emotional bang that quietly breaks your heart.

Genres: Poetry

136 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2023

About the author

Diane Mehta is a poet and writer, born in Germany and raised in India and the U.S. She's interested in heritage, faith, serendipity, and reason. Her second poetry collection Tiny Extravaganzas (2023) came out to much acclaim. Her new book Happier Far: Essays is out in March 2025. She writes for the New Yorker, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, A Public Space, Kenyon Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, and American Poetry Review. She was a fellow at Civitella Ranieri and Yaddo, and has been the recipient of a Cafe Royal Foundation award for nonfiction and the Peter Heinegg Foundation award for creative work. She is collaborating with musicians and visual artists and is poet in residence at NYC's New Chamber Ballet.

Reviews

[Sharon Lin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable book — bright, wise, and full of love. I wish I could hold these poems inside myself forever.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely—multilayered and complex, but always with a way in to the heart of each poem. Musings on on interacting with art/dance/music, on loss, on age, on parenting an almost-grown child—sophisticated, knockout imagery, lurking empathy, and inventive, fun-to-read-out-loud language.