Mumbai , June 29: Mumbai-based poet, writer, and multidisciplinary artist Devangana Mishra announces the release of her poetry and art compilation, Desierto Florido, this July, accompanied by book tours and poetry readings across select cities across the world.
Desierto Florido weaves poetry, visual art, and photography into a single work, drawing on poetic traditions from oral chants and collective recitation through to the formalised Italian sonnet. It invites readers to slow down and rediscover the hymn of poetry as a shared, sensory act – a response to an era of accelerated attention and compressed communication, making a case for depth over speed through short poetic fragments interlaced with photography and art.
“Poetry is a breath to movement, a break to the monotone, a sip to a journeyer, a sigh to the heart, a note to the musician, a rose to a loved one, a light to a match. It is the open air between an offering and the receiver, it is that vastness that puts to shame oceans, it is the space that conquers parting of continents. It is the speck of sunshine seekers were in search when they found the poet, Audre Lorde.
When we first met,
I had never been to a walk,
In the woods.
Dew drops, honey combs, filaments of language, pauses and petals. But , our senses are scattered and our sensibilities are hurried. Despite the ease of modern living, we live in the paciest times we’ve known – from our attention to our imaginations to our daily living, everything is rushed, quickened, transitory. The speed of absorption is hastened and for lamenting or loving has been shortened. Matters of moot or the ones not so much are hard to distinguish.
Thus, public empowerment will hold possibility for what may become of poetry. So, with this tiny book, my attempt is to find language lost. To read with you, and to remember in unison – when we write, we create a world alongside.”,
Devangana writes in the book’s foreword.