• Acrobat
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Archipelago Books

Acrobat

Acrobat

by Nabaneeta Dev Sen, translated from the Bengali by Nabaneeta Dev Sen

$18.00
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A radiant collection of poetry about womanhood, intimacy, and the body politic that together evokes the arc of an ordinary life. Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s rhythmic lines explore the joys and agonies of first love, childbirth, and decay with a restless, tactile imagination, both picking apart and celebrating the rituals that make us human. When she warns, “know that blood can be easily drawn by lips,” her words tune to the fierce and biting depths of language, to the “treachery that lingers on tongue tips.” At once compassionate and unsparing, conversational and symphonic, these poems tell of a rope shivering beneath an acrobat's nimble feet or of a twisted, blood-soaked umbilical cord – they pluck the invisible threads that bind us together.

Additional Book Information

Series: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 9781939810809
Pages: 120
Publication Date:

Praise

Translated and introduced by her daughter Nandana Dev Sen, Acrobat is an illustrative and delicate portrayal of Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s immense poetic life.
—Zachary Kinsella, Full Stop

The “strange and dazzling world” Dev Sen evokes . . . is everywhere throughout Acrobat . . . Everything is alive and bright and noisily crashing: anger, revolt, grief, pain, yes, but especially life—or at least momentarily, until “in the heat of the sun, all sounds fade away.” This, I think, is the heart of this collection: Dev Sen always finds a way to surprise us with life, only to remind us that we are finite.
—Nicola Vulpe, Asymptote

Poetry and music are both languages of the heart, so it is a special gift when a great poet of the world is finally well-translated. Here, the legendary Bengali poet, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, is re-birthed in English by her daughter, Nandana Dev Sen. I believe that Acrobat is a book that will rescue us and be loved around the world.
—Gloria Steinem

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