Lost, Hurt, or in Transit Beautiful

“This is just how violence enters poems,” Chhetri reminds us, “through a screen door / crawling & Mother asleep on the couch.” Chhetri manipulates traditional literary forms, including odes, lyric poems, and tercets, into daring hybrid creations which make this collection unique. “In my language, there is a name for this music,” he explains, that “odd tenor, the music of human bones.” Despite his unique and innovative style, Chhetri’s poetry is accessible for both curious newcomers and longtime poetry lovers. Widely celebrated for his manipulation of language, Chhetri has been praised for his “gruesome and gorgeous” imagery, “utterly riveting” language, and songlike effortlessness. This long-anticipated winner of the 2018 Kundiman Poetry Prize is a “work in which poetic technique is brought to bear on lingering questions of identity, artistic tradition, and the cruelty implicit in language itself.”