The Gods Came Afterwards: Poems

‘This book is a haunting meditation.'—Ann Waldman Through these spare poems Sharmistha Mohanty weaves together inseparably the contemporary and the almost primal. The result is a singular voice new and old at the same time. In its oral quality in its questioning and assertion in its vigour and vulnerability it seems to be uttering anew what was once collective and perhaps still is under the surface. The poems in The Gods Came Afterwards are a calling out far beyond the personal through an unusually pared down English language and a long Indic heritage. ‘These poems are like hymns thrown up from the deepest depths of the self. They are upward rising a solitary being’s verses of praise. They utter the purest parts of the soul.'—Joy Goswami