Cirrus@Austlit

'This collaborative engagement is corresponding poems between a Canberra-based poet, Shane Strange, and a Kolkata-based poet, Jaydeep Sarangi, which explores themes like local awareness, links with the land and natural resources, and reflections on thoughts and cultural aspects of life. Taking the social and linguistic background in both poets, these poems reflect on how we both communicate with the world poetically. We maintained some principles like dialoguing ourselves with another self, with another context of life, customs, values, histories and forces and functions of the society. We wanted to imagine each other as paired and partnered, one reflecting the other. Together, we unearthed many similarities in terms of the issues we deal with to make sense of the immediate and beyond. Even though we are way apart in geography, terra firma, culture and language our engagements with words unite us within a rare fabric of proximity of thought and tuning. Expressions and images link, and bind us together.' (Publication abstract)