The Vagabond : Poems from the margin – Vishal Prabhu

Description

Vishal Prabhu’s poetry teeters on the edge — its syncopated stops, its torn-out wordplay, its concentrated rhythms all give the feeling of falling off and getting saved at the very same time. It is an act which is both poetic and savage, leaving the reader gasping, and asking, how can words stab so deep? The Vagabond is so revelatory that it finds a home for the very reasons it runs wild. In poem after poem, Prabhu questions the human condition — and in delineating the answers, he becomes the creator, the chronicler, the critic, and the destroyer. Poetry, in Prabhu’s hands, is finely-sculpted, immaculately cut, and placed on each page like grenades — to explode old notions in order to create a new consciousness. Prabhu says that he writes poetry to ‘revitalise existing vocabulary’, which to him is an intrinsic part of the poet’s agenda. In The Vagabond, he goes beyond. His poetry is as much a catalogue of lived-in realities as it is a war zone of senses. He says, ‘One has to feel blessed to have been born a poet.’ We are equally blessed to be readers of his work. — Sunil Bhandari, Poet and Podcaster

Vishal Prabhu knows that the God of words is reticent. His poetry resides in the vast liminal space where perception takes on a pure form and creates the reality of abstraction. Prabhu carefully selects his words and stretches their divinity with finesse to decode the other side of the moon and being. In an interview with Prabhu, Tuhin Bhowal traces the poetic tradition of American poet Cid Corman with reclusive poet Lorine Niedecker. The impact of Vishal Prabhu’s unusual metaphors grows on you, and you cannot shake them off for a long time like a cloud of obstinate yet colourful fruit flies in summer. — Sekhar Banerjee, Poet