There is nothing ‘uncertain’ about the speaker of Varsha Shah‘s collection, Voices. This book succeeds in making what all good poetry must, a language-structure in which the unsayable is housed. Shah fills her ‘shelters’ with stuff that matters, and makes it matter to us these things have been saved.
–Justen Ahren, Poet Laureate of West Tisbury, MA, and author of A Strange Catechism
There is a brightness of spirit and intelligence to Varsha Saraiya-Shah‘s first collection of poems, Voices-they seem to be written on the lyrical cusp of discovery, and rejoicing in life. Though quintessentially affirmative, they are by no means simple-minded, for one feels worldliness in these poems, and the world’s trouble-but this poet’s specialty is dancing through the gaps in trouble, into the larger openness of life. “Step aside, O reason, my goddess exclaims,” says Saraiya-Shah, “I am a speckle of time/ sexless, fearless, without name.”
–Tony Hoagland, Poet, writer, and winner of numerous awards including Jackson Poetry Prize, Academy Literature and Mark Twain awards
Varsha Saraiya-Shah writes deliciously potent poems to live by. Richly embodied-“something to create from room’s silence”-their warm intimacy invites us in, deepens the day.
–Naomi Shihab Nye, Poet, song-writer, novelist, and winner of numerous awards including Robert Creeley award, Paterson Poetry Prize and four Pushcarts
We hear Varsha Saraiya-Shah‘s voice startling in its clarity in these poems that are “seeds of sweetness.” At once playful, subversive, humorous, and sensitive, Voices dazzles us with its word play, quirky humor, and crisp imagery. Woven together with the beauty of rhythm, internal rhyme and assonance, Voices surprises and thrills us. Each poem in this volume is a “signature of light.”
–Pramila Venkateswaran, Suffolk County Poet Laureate, and author of Thirteen Days to Let Go, Trace, Behind Dark Waters, and Thirtha
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