Diaspora and the Difficult Art of Dying
Every poem in this collection offers a stepping stone or resting place on what is essentially a diasporic odyssey. Mishra’s is a poetry of discontinuities, of sojourning, of not staying put; it traces the lines of an eccentric cartography, moving restlessly from Fiji to Scotland, to Australia, to New Zealand, to Malta, to Italy and back. It is similarly unsettled in its approach to motifs and forms: a sequence of sonnets jostles with a terza rima; free verse stands alongside a sufi parable. There are poems about poetry, colonialism, photography, food, Palestine, the Pacific, and most of all about people.
‘Surprise juxtapositions of imagery leap off the page.’ – Cilla McQueen
Sudesh Mishra
Sudesh Mishra was born in Fiji and is the author of four books of poetry, including Diaspora and the Difficult Art of Dying (OUP, 2002). His poems have also been much anthologised. Sudesh has taught at universities in Fiji, Australia and Scotland. He is currently head of the School of Language, Arts and Media at the University of the South Pacific in Suva.
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