Collected Poems in English

Arun Kolatkar (1931-2004) was one of India's greatest modern poets. He wrote prolifically, in both Marathi and English, publishing in magazines and anthologies from 1955, but did not bring out a book of poems until he was 44. "Jejuri" (1976) won him the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. His third Marathi publication, Bhijki Vahi, won a Sahitya Akademi Award in 2004. Always hesitant about publishing his work, Kolatkar waited until 2004, when he knew he was dying from cancer, before bringing out two further books, "Kala Ghoda Poems" and "Sarpa Satra". A posthumous selection, "The Boatride and Other Poems" (2008), edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, contained his previous uncollected English poems as well as translations of his Marathi poems; among the book's surprises were his translations of bhakti poetry, song lyrics, and a long love poem, the only one he wrote, cleverly disguised as light verse. This first Collected Poems in English brings together work from all those volumes. "Jejuri" offers a rich description of India while at the same time performing a complex act of devotion, discovering the divine trace in a degenerate world. Salman Rushdie called it 'sprightly, clear-sighted, deeply felt - a modern classic'. For Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, it was 'among the finest single poems written in India in the last forty years - it surprises by revealing the familiar, the hidden that is always before us'. Jeet Thayil attributed its popularity in India to 'the Kolatkarean voice: unhurried, lit with whimsy, unpretentious even when making learned literary or mythological allusions. And whatever the poet's eye alights on - particularly the odd, the misshapen, and the famished - receives the gift of close attention.'

'He had a magical gift for translating the familiar into the wonderful, by focussing on details or tweaking our programmed approaches to objects, people and relationships. In his poems, wry irony underpins the miracle of things seen and touched, people met and sized up...Kolatkar's poetry orchestrates a play of scales: the epic alternates with the intimate, the Self weaves through the Other. In Sarpa Satra, he assumed the alternately elegiac and excoriating voice of a private self beset by public terrors, tempted into cynicism but mandated to bear witness to history - Kolatkar addressed mythic themes that still resonate in India's public life - ecological devastation, the military occupation of farflung provinces, and the staging of pogroms' - Ranjit Hoskote, The Hindu. 'Kolatkar was a poet of world class with a very individual way of looking at the world. In his writing every cliche is transformed into something new and unexpected, a transformation by imagination, language, and tone - Bruce King, Modern Poetry in English. 'Moving deftly from street life in Bombay to Hindu myths, these last poems confirm his cult reputation as the greatest Indian poet of his generation' - Pankaj Mishra, Times Literary Supplement.

Arun Kolatkar was born in 1931 in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India. He grew up in a traditional patriarchal Hindu extended family, describing their crowded home as 'a house of cards - the rooms had mudfloors which had to be plastered with cowdung every week to keep them in good repair'. He was educated at Rajaram High School in Kolhapur, where lessons were taught in Marathi, and at the J.J. School of Art in Bombay, also attending art schools in Kolhapur and Pune, graduating in 1957. He spent several years trying to make a living before turning to work as an art director and graphic designer for several advertising agencies in Bombay, achieving great success in this field. He wrote prolifically, in both Marathi and English, publishing in magazines and anthologies from 1955, but did not bring out a book of poems before Jejuri (1976), which won him the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. His third Marathi publication, Bhijki Vahi, won a Sahitya Akademi Award in 2004. A reclusive figure all his life, he lived without a telephone, and was hesitant about publishing his work. It was only after he was diagnosed with cancer that two further volumes of his poetry in English were brought out by friends, Kala Ghoda Poems and Sarpa Satra in 2004. He died not long afterwards. A further posthumous selection, The Boatride and Other Poems (2008), edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, contained his previous uncollected English poems as well as translations of his Marathi poems; among the book's surprises were his translations of bhakti poetry, song lyrics, and a long love poem, the only one he wrote, cleverly disguised as light verse. His Collected Poems in English (Bloodaxe Books, 2010), edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, brings together work from all those volumes.