The Tiny Economies of Restraint
I like not knowing your coldnessor the length of your shadowor the haunted architecture of your face.I do not want to know the names of cemeteriesyou've been to, or how the dead walk on knives.I like the tiny economies of restraint,of not knowing the size of your fistwhen the doorbell rings.
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- January 24, 2024
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“The Tiny Economies of Restraint” from FOLIE Á DEUX: by Jennifer Robertson.
Published by Everybody Press on September 26, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by Jennifer Robertson
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Jennifer Robertson is a poet, critic, and consultant based in Bombay. Her poems and critical essays have been published in the US, UK, and India. Many of her poems have been widely anthologised: 40 Under 40: An Anthology Of Post-Globalization Poetry; Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians published by Sahitya Akademi and The Penguin Book of Indian Poets. Jennifer has convened the literary chapter for the PEN All-India Centre at Prithvi Theatre. Her debut poetry collection Folie à deux has been published in the USA by Everybody Press( Fall 2023) and is forthcoming in India by Paperwall Publishing (2024).
"Lexically restless, geodesic, and unapologetically omnivorous, Jennifer Robertson’s Folie à deux is a dialectic that considers the fulcra of observance and animacy, liberation and stagnancy, tranquility and obsession. Robertson’s poetry applies a painterly heat to our bodies, and dares readers to scratch at persona, and to map a self through the historical detritus of art and signs. What disturbs me most about this book is that, ravenously, Robertson “reinvents time travel.”
—Jhani Randhawa, author of Time Regime
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