Translated by Lucy Rosenstein with the poet Bernard O’Donoghue.
The poems you hear on today’s podcast are by Mohan Rana. Rana lives in Bath, England and writes deceptively simple poems circling metaphysical themes, grasping at memory, truth and being. In the afterward to Mohan’s PTC collection, the poet Alison Brackenbury describes her experience of his poetry, saying:
Simplicity in poetry is like water. There is a place for the black kick of coffee, a time for the gold-rimmed bubbles of champagne. But to live, we need water. Clarity is as refreshing as cool water. It is a feature of Mohan Rana’s writing.
His poems are marked by an endless curiosity and questioning, a refusal to take the world at face value. His poems are influenced by Buddhism. In her introduction to his work translator, Lucy Rosenstein says
What gives Rana’s poetry its magnetic quality is that despite its philosophical profundity, his work is vividly accessible even to those readers new to Indian philosophy and religion. His themes are universal and conveyed through simple, resonant images.
