Anima & The Narrative Limits

In this stunning new collection Nabina Das takes on the most human of our qualities our yearning for story and escorts us through poems that are also lyrical micro-narratives: from the very local-the flavors colors and tastes of the market; the damp of an earthen floor; the fugitive beauty and ugliness of plastic litter-to the more abstract: earth water blood losses absences breath song and silence. Anima is our first and best guide: a powerful fearless entity who will take on any topic including violent death abiding love pandemic loss. Das carries us as she says in the double-meaning title of the second section of this work to the narrative limits (and to the limits of narrative) consoling us in the final poem with her fugitive optimism: the image of hands catching light itself where fireflies make moving poetry of the night.