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VIJAIGANGA - Where the Horizons Converge: Poems on Peace

(Published by Cyberwit.net, 2007, ISBN 978-81-8253-073-7, 81 pages, paperback, US$12)

Where the Horizons Converge: Poems on Peace is a visual work of literature, quite evocative and descriptive in its nature romanticism - at times a bit reminiscent of Walt Whitman. Vijaiganga wields the paintbrush with a combination of mental control and intuitive abandon. (Yes, if you are wondering ... that is good.) The poems give the reader a sense of oneness with nature, and have the pleasant effect of offering a respite from the illusion of spiritual separation.

However, I would make two critical comments. Firstly, in a few of the poems the author uses some archaic formulations that can seem unnatural (if not stilted). This has nothing to do with differences between Indian English, and Western forms of English. The temptation to use archaic words does not necessarily add to a sense of the "poetic" or artistic, but rather should be used to signal a different voice, a different time period, another (perhaps "higher") authority etc. - thus giving their usage functional poetic legitimacy. A couple of examples follow:

from "Voice of the Crustacean: On First Escaping to Land" -

Coddled betwixt a country farm and a hurrying town,

and

from "Bemoan Not Our Terrestrial Triumphs" -

'Twas for the love of combat -

Secondly, Vijaiganga's verse (though beautiful in its natural simplicity combined with engineered reflection) would perhaps be better suited as continuous free verse in paragraph form - with one sentence flowing into the next, without forced line breaks and extra line spaces. When one reads this poetry aloud in a continuous free style, the interconnectedness that has been so ingeniously crafted comes much better to light than when read on the printed page in its present form. These critical comments are minor, but it is the small touches that make a poem a masterpiece in its own right. And Vijaiganga has nearly mastered this unique form of writing.

Literary criticism (2008) by Adam Donaldson Powell (based upon "Where the Horizons Converge: Poems on Peace", published by Cyberwit.net, 2007, ISBN 978-81-8253-073-7, 81 pages, paperback, US$12)

VIJAIGANGA (India) has been published in e-zines, anthologies and here in a new collection of poems.