Shortlisted for the Guyana Prize, Best Book of Poetry, 2012

This collection is as much about love and people in and out of relationships as it is about origins and the process of estrangement. The lantana is a flower of South American origin, and the ixora of Asian origin. The lantana, a creeper that grows profusely, often engulfing other plants, provides a ready metaphor for the consciousness of the Americas overcoming that of India in the Americas–the mainstreaming and divesting of yoga from its Indian origins being the most visible manifestation. This collection ranges widely in its geographical and historical concerns, from Canada to Guyana to India and places in between, exploring the contradictions in our lives: familial influences, terrorism, literature, politics, race, and the power of language and representation. As always in Persaud’s work, love is ever present. This is a collection that displays mastery over nuances of language, and is at once quirky and humorous as it continues an engagement with the theme of “place as muse.”

“In this collection, Persaud’s elegant poems, though they linger heavily on loss, are quietly reassuring.”
—Bostonia

“[A] bit like reading T.S. Eliot mixed up with Rabindranath Tagore.”
—The Halifax Herald Chronicle

“Persaud . . . offers the reader a diverse and wide-ranging collection of poems, all of which are explored with his signature wit and skilful mastery of language.”
—Wasafiri