Water & Wave

Praise for Water & Wave

With the uncanny clarity of the born observer, Eugene Datta, standing at the site of a martyr's death in Ganderbal, Kashmir, recalls how "An old woman / sobbed without tears as oblong drops / of the mustard field shone through holes in her earlobes." Or he is in a coffee shop in Jadavpur, West Bengal, recalling his student days there, "and the lost faces wrapped / in that damp smell of the south wind in spring / (which made the heart twinge, / without fail, / in that one special way / that couldn't be named)." What becomes clear, as Datta moves fluidly across boundaries of countries and cultures, and his own past and present, is that he is an extraordinary writer-cosmopolitan, erudite, achingly lyrical. His poems remind me of why I came to poetry in the first place.

- George Bilgere

From delicate haiku-like miniatures in which "thoughts lie white / on the black filigree / of branches," to "January 2022," a poem wide-ranging enough to encompass simultaneous global disasters, Eugene Datta knows that to imagine pain "isn't equal to suffering it." Even so, the poet's ability to comprehend-that is, to both understand and hold close all that he observes-is lovingly confirmed in poems whose agile language serves a deeper purpose: to acknowledge, with empathy, the shadows and light of worlds both seen and unseen. Throughout Water & Wave, Datta's vision is distinguished by a meditative openness that wisely asks, "if you can receive as a mirror / does, without effort, without bias, / everything in front of it, / ...who can tell / if you haven't, for that instant, for all / your flaws, been a bodhisattva?" In the light of such poems, Eugene Datta's benevolent intelligence shines.

- Ned Balbo

About the Author

EUGENE DATTA has worked as a newspaper journalist, a book reviewer, and an editor. His poetry and fiction have appeared widely both online and in print, with some of his work being anthologized, and translated into German, French, and Italian. A recipient of the Stiftung Laurenz-Haus fellowship, he has held residencies at Ledig House International Writers' Colony, and Fundación Valparaíso. Born and raised in India, he lives in Aachen, Germany. Water & Wave is his first collection of poetry.