Acknowledging LOSS  : Poems by Amarendra Khatua, Art by Arpana Caur

ISBN 978-81-951915-2-9 Rs. 695 Indian

Amarendra’s Poems mix memories with haunting words and etch superb pictures of love and despair, waiting and melancholia’.

– Graciela Aroaoz, Poet and president, Argentina Writers Association

 Khatua’s Acknowledging Loss epitomises the dynamic lifetime of a poet/bureaucrat who has now delved deeper into the forest of silence to create poems of inconceivable heights, a castle of cravings inside the forest of his lonely bones where “heart asks simple questions/And body will seek sinful offerings.” Here the poet’s fingers grow feathers and love oozes out of his each pore to conjure up these brilliant ruminations on life, loss and regeneration.  A splendid feat of imagination.”

– Yuyutsu Sharma, Himalayan Poet & Author of Annapurna Poems & A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems

Agony of losing in love, seeking definition of eternal waiting and defining depths of human relationship in well- crafted imagery –  Amarendra’s Poem resembles the familiar tradition imposed by Neruda’s tradition’.

– Juany Rojas, Poet, Chile

Vivid Portrayal of love and longing, exile and waiting.

– Jorge Paolantonio, Poet & Novelist, Argentina

In Amarendra’s magical précis of words, corralling disparate emotions into the concentrated elixir of poetry, he offers us a rich tapestry of the colors of life’s desires, some muted, others vibrant. He takes us along on his rollercoaster of restlessly twisting and stretching through the unfathomable waves of love and loss – remembered, misremembered, relived, reconstructed. A timely comfort as we collectively acknowledge loss.

– Sharon Lowen, major international performing artist, columnist, writer and art historian

Poetry of lost relations and savage longing.

– Aleyda Rojas, Poet, Ecuador

‘Silence is a forest’ like Amarendra’s poems. Brilliant. Pierces the core. He is an innovative modernist. Profane, yet in the same breath, sacred, brimming with disillusion, yet layered with hope. The man who suffers, and the mind that creates -dissecting and scrutinizing, yet consumed by love and its messy darkness. Amarendra’s poems begin with him, and do not end with the reader, but continue beyond, in their relentless, endless sojourn into the forests of infinity, leaving in their wake a lingering wistfulness – restless and thirsty.

– Sohini Roychowdhury, Major Bharatnatyam dancer, motivational speaker, women and social issues activist, Founder & Director, Sohinimoksha World Dance & Communications  & Sohinimoksha Artes de La India, Madrid

There are very few writers (are there?) who can express so accurately my own feelings better than myself. The masks we wear are torn apart by his images, for they are true, intense, inescapable and therefore liberating. His words throw a light over our darkest shadows and they remind us of a certainty: we cannot live without poetry. An exquisite writer, an impeccable professional, a very dear friend. He is the eternal poet.

– Mira Tevsic, eminent musician, journalist, poet and translator, Croatia and Argentina

In Acknowledging Loss the renowned Indian poet, Amarendra  Khatua  presents us with a bouquet of poems that he wrote during  his stay in Argentina as his country’s Ambassador (India).The first thing that strikes you  in these poems that flourish in the world, not only as a physical existence, but also as a mirror that reflects the concerns  and losses of the self. Nature, memory, love alignment, absence and darkness represent a horizon through which the poet passes towards where he isolates himself in this poetic prophecy.

In this, the poet is not far from the Indian cultural and spiritual heritage, which is present in the poem, even if he wrote them in Argentina. Between Indian and Argentina, the poet forms a wonderful poetic imagination provided with images, revelations, metaphors and expressions from various cultural and poetic references, but they are reconciled in the poems in a harmonic and wonderful  way.

– Mohamed Ahmed Bennis, Moroccan poet, translator and critic

Poems in this collection, invigoratingly inspiring, presents human nature in disorder with deft precision and beauty and raises a banner of optimism to confront desolation of loss. Love, dreams, desire and waiting – are the paths to our journey into truth and meaning of life. Like a guide with life’s experience, the poet presents in his poems the emptiness and the feeling of loss of any contemporary man and his journey into self discovery, through love and lifelessness

– Stella Maris Ponce, poet, jazz and tango singer, author of

The Rituals Of The Night and The Voice

Reflection of cosmic and regional experiences is conspicuous in Khatua’s poetry. Every word in his poems beads on a contemplative thread. With both asynchronous and contemporary themes, the poet seems estimating and acknowledging the loss that he himself and the world incurred. Poetic devices run through every line as spontaneous as a fountain. The uses of apt imagery and diction transport the readers to some metaphysical world as if they were hobnobbing with speaking pictures. Reading of his poems gives a feeling of waking and open-eyed meditation.

– Vivekanand Jha, Air Force Veteran, Indian English Poet, Translator and Editor

Poems in this book meanders through light and darkness. There is a sense of loss as one goes through the book yet there is also an overwhelmingly bright hue which brings back the love for life. Outstanding imagery in every poem this book will inspire readers to practice calm and solitude in the midst of mayhem.

– Prabal Kumar Basu, Indian poet

Mincing no words on depths of words, silence, loss, loneliness, acceptance of unfulfilled dreams, imperfect life, social inequalities, yet rays of hopes are visible in the poems for the antagonist to cling on to live, to come back home to face the dark, shadows, or brokenness with equanimity and willingness to search till eternity. Choice of words is impeccable and their impact is great.

–Mohan Chutani, Indian Poet

Amarendra Khatua is a distinguished Indian poet and Senior Diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. He has served both as the Indian Ambassador to Argentina, and as the Indian Ambassador to Ivory Coast. A widely traveled author and culture critic, Khatua has forty published collections of poetry in English, Odia, Hindi, and other Indian dialects and international languages.