Series | India
Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.
The poems in Series | India explore the rich borderlands between the familiar and the foreign, illumination and opacity, gods and charlatans, through the braided, sometimes unstable narratives of young Westerners in India. In lyrics deeply informed by Gray’s study and experience in India, and formally characterized by shifting and juxtaposed perceptions, perspectives, and voices, we encounter a young couple seeking refuge and enlightenment in a place where the lines between the divine, the human, the gorgeous, the deadly, and the hilarious are often indistinct.
“20 At the Shore Temple,” from Series | India:
Dawn breaks over the Bay of Bengal and waves cherish the low steps and the statues' broken feet. Surely this is all. Everything I would share with you is here at this tide and temple. Stay with me, Mother. Watch the gulls. In our other life I will tell you who we were this morning, here, on this beach.