Tautly stretched over the chasm between idolization and iconoclasm, restraint and audacity, and the man-animal distinction, the poems contained in this book evoke scintillating images and garden- fresh metaphors.

Parrots that live on Mount Everest, tigers who swallow poets, fishless oceans, ill-tempered camels, and sparrows of memory coexist in its pages with pancakes of platitudes, the Great Mountain of Fear, a starved Bedouin who feels enormous guilt for being hungry, the change in the direction of toes with age, and the one-eyed blacksmith of time. Never has magical surrealism cloaked existential truths better in poetry.

About the Author

Salman Akhtar, MD, was born in India and completed his medical and psychiatric education there. Upon arriving in the USA in 1973, he repeated his psychiatric training at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and then obtained psychoanalytic training from the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. Currently, he is Professor of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College and a training and supervising analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He has authored, edited or co-edited more than 300 publications including books on psychiatry and psychoanalysis and several collections of poetry. He is also a Scholar-in-Residence at the Inter-Act Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Salman Akhtar received the Sigourney Award in 2012.

Book Information
ISBN 9781912573707
Author Salman Akhtar
Format Paperback
Page Count 76
Imprint Aeon Books Ltd
Publisher Aeon Books Ltd