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Arrow
Winner of the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2021 Shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize 2021 Arrow is a debut volume extraordinary in ambition, range and achievement. At its centre is 'Dear, beloved', a more-than-elegy for her younger sister who died in the two years she took to write the poem, much else came into 'it was my hope to write the mood of elegy rather than an elegy proper,' following the example of the great elegists including Milton, to whose Paradise Lost she listened during the period of composition, also hearing the strains of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's Song , of Alice Oswald and Marie Howe. The poem becomes a kind of kingdom, 'one that is at once evil, or blighted, and beautiful, not to mention everything in between'. As well as elegy, Chakraborty composes invocations, verse essays, and the strange extended miracle of the title poem, in which ancient and modern history, memory and the lived moment, are held in a directed balance. It celebrates the natural forces of the world and the rapt experience of balance, form and - love. She declares a marked admiration for poems that 'will write into being a world that already in some way exists'. This is what her poems achieve.
- GenresPoetry
100 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 8, 2020
From "Most of the Children Who Lived in This House Are Dead. As a Child I Lived Here. Therefore I am Dead"
Figure 11. New forms of physics and metaphysics
Most of the children who lived in this house are dead. As a child I lived here. Therefore I am dead. Most of the animals who lived in this house are dead. As an animal I lived here. Therefore I am dead. The English word *planet* comes from ancient Greek and Latin words meaning *wander* or *wanderer.* As children and animals we live on a planet. Therefore we wander and are wanderers. The alphabets, essentially, are trees. Therefore this book is a forest. No forest is ever a forest alone.
(14).
O
Stars are not the end, but the
beginning.
A bird is to its throat as a promise is
to its sharp edge.
I wanted to make for you a
sunshower. Instead I have made for
you a mortal thing.
Writing is knowing how to cut.
There is a space in my body that did
not exist when I began this book. It
is a window. When I next speak,
I will do so through that window.
Please leave the window unlatched.
When I next speak, it will be with
changed lips.
I wonder what their color will be.
Finally, she enlarges the figure to a grand
scale, and cuts off its head.
Note: The first italicized line in “O” is from Georges Didi-Huberman. The second comes from an image caption in the 2017-2018 exhibit of Louise Bourgeois’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (79)
From the Notes (83):
"In an attempt to curb my instinct from the citationally Borgesian, I have limited these notes to direct, intentional provenances that the poems themselves do not fully explain. Other voices and referents, thankfully and invariably, also lurk. One example of a lurker I will permit myself to share with you, because I recently reacquainted myself with it and I hope that you might read or reread it: Carl Phillips's "As From a Quiver Full of Arrows" has long haunted my mind. There are no explicit references to it in this book, and I don't think I reread it while writing this book. But I recently returned to it and reread it, and so it felt strange not to mention it and my gratitude for it here."
Figure 11. New forms of physics and metaphysics
Most of the children who lived in this house are dead. As a child I lived here. Therefore I am dead. Most of the animals who lived in this house are dead. As an animal I lived here. Therefore I am dead. The English word *planet* comes from ancient Greek and Latin words meaning *wander* or *wanderer.* As children and animals we live on a planet. Therefore we wander and are wanderers. The alphabets, essentially, are trees. Therefore this book is a forest. No forest is ever a forest alone.
(14).
O
Stars are not the end, but the
beginning.
A bird is to its throat as a promise is
to its sharp edge.
I wanted to make for you a
sunshower. Instead I have made for
you a mortal thing.
Writing is knowing how to cut.
There is a space in my body that did
not exist when I began this book. It
is a window. When I next speak,
I will do so through that window.
Please leave the window unlatched.
When I next speak, it will be with
changed lips.
I wonder what their color will be.
Finally, she enlarges the figure to a grand
scale, and cuts off its head.
Note: The first italicized line in “O” is from Georges Didi-Huberman. The second comes from an image caption in the 2017-2018 exhibit of Louise Bourgeois’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (79)
From the Notes (83):
"In an attempt to curb my instinct from the citationally Borgesian, I have limited these notes to direct, intentional provenances that the poems themselves do not fully explain. Other voices and referents, thankfully and invariably, also lurk. One example of a lurker I will permit myself to share with you, because I recently reacquainted myself with it and I hope that you might read or reread it: Carl Phillips's "As From a Quiver Full of Arrows" has long haunted my mind. There are no explicit references to it in this book, and I don't think I reread it while writing this book. But I recently returned to it and reread it, and so it felt strange not to mention it and my gratitude for it here."
August 10, 2021
Long-limbed & shining!
April 29, 2022
There was much that surprised me in these poems—turns of phrases, images, and philosophical observations that jumped off the page and shivered for a moment before easing back into their poem’s epic context. Chakraborty is admirably adept at shaping and sharpening myth, though too often I wasn’t able to interpret the myths or their realistic context with any confidence or clarity. Ilya Kaminski called this collection “endlessly mysterious,” and I agree, and the mystery was intriguing, but not intriguing enough to hold my focus in the face of my frustrated attempts to make meaning out of the poems. Wrestling with them was rewarding, however, if not entirely satisfying.
November 21, 2023
I'm not generally one for poetry collections, but this one faded so beautifully from one poem/essay to the next. This book perfectly encapsulates themes of love, loss, death, and life by providing a space where they can be felt to their fullest extent. The reader gets to follow along with Chakraborty as she feels these things out, whether that means indulging certain feelings and lines of thought or shutting them down. The threads that connect the individual pieces and inform each other do so seamlessly and the ending ties it all together.
May 29, 2022
I felt the longer, paragraph-style poems left me with a disconnect from the emotions and complexities that Chakraborty was trying to convey. The formatting threw me for a loop and while I do think there is great depth and a sharpness to her writing, stylistically the type of poems Chakraborty writes may not be for me. On a personal note, this collection didn't invoke in me any profound emotion or feeling.
August 23, 2021
Fascinating, engaging and at times otherworldly. With themes ranging from the harrowing depths of grief and loss to the expanses of myth and the skies, Chakraborty in her debut collection and evoked such a unique lyrical experience, I can't think of anything to truly compare it to. Four stars from me for sure :))
December 19, 2020
Sumita Chakraborty's writing is haunting, inspiring, and more. There is nothing more you can ask for from a book of poetry and prose.
January 19, 2021
A breathtaking exploration of language and grief.
July 18, 2021
Beautiful book full of emotionally-wrought, intelligent poems. I'm so excited to continue to learn from these poems and teach them to my students.
September 11, 2022
Lush, heartbreaking
November 15, 2022
This book made me love the long poem again
August 21, 2024
each poem & essay cut to the bone
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews