Earth In Space Selected Poems
This selection of the poet’s work-in three sections-introduces the reader to his wideranging concerns. In these, we hear a voice which celebrates the world, revels in contact with human beings, is capable of rueful comments on the human situation that in no way demean or misconstrue the great and beautiful truths of our existence.
Of this vigorous, tough and unusual voice, the English poet Kathleen Raine, one of the tallest literary figures of our times, said:
“Keshav Malik is a poet of true originality, not because he tries to innovate, but because he tries to be exactly truthful. over the years he has worked at unsparing truthtelling to a degree of precision I recognize in no other poet, He is sparing of words, but the words he permits himself-or that truth permits him-he deploys with extraordinary subtlety-yet he is never satisfied, always, on the contrary, feels he is not quite there…neither an easy or comfortable poet, but he does take us into the inscrutable distance of where we are, here and now, in the amazing and ordinary of our uncertain selves…an Indian poet who writes in English but who is not a westernized poet.”
