Carcanet Press - Sumita Chakraborty

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Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, essayist, and scholar. She is Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Poetry at the University of Michigan, where she teaches literary studies and creative writing. In 2017, she received a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and in 2018, her poem ‘And death demands a labor’ was shortlisted for a Forward Prize for Best Single Poem by the Forward Arts Foundation. Formerly, she was poetry editor of AGNI Magazine and art editor of At Length.

'Arrow by Sumita Chakraborty is a marvelous collection for both the maximalist and minimalist. Here are brief lyrics, prose essays, parables, lengthy lineated epics - and all of them given life with language stretched and pummelled into shape. Dealing in myth, astronomy, autobiography, philosophy, physics and metaphysics, Chakraborty possesses a singular outlook and the tone of a prophet.'

Nick Laird, Chair of the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collections Poetry Prize Judges

'... a book of consistent quality... whose constituent poems work together to form a totality of such richness and ambition. [Chakraborty has] a voice distinguished by its remarkable ability to combine the intellectual with the emotional, the abstract with the somatic, the essayistic with the lyrical'

Padraig Regan, Seamus Heaney Centre

'This powerful and endlessly mysterious collection of poems is a book of fables, of spells, of revised narratives, and of realigned songs, brightly lifted above our bodies by music that is as unpredictable as it is marvelous. The lyricism is everywhere apparent as Sumita Chakraborty addresses us, our bodies and their stories, our planet, and our sense of time itself. How does she do it? Mad Ireland hurt him into poetry, W. H. Auden wrote about Yeats, and as the hurt enters Chakraborty's language, we see that in speech violated, sounds and meanings - and even the oldest of human mysteries, like "the etymology of love" - are redefined. All one can do is repeat: this is an endlessly compelling book. Bravo.'
Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic 'Arrow is rich: it is a collection to truly lose yourself in - you could spend hours gleefully unpicking and analysing all the clever references and imagery, or simply let the writing wash over you like a cold sea wave, painful but invigorating... It is the perfect collection for lovers of contemporary poetry: strongly rooted in poetic traditions, with themes and language that make it feel fresh and exhilarating. Arrow feels like an extension of Sumita Chakraborty herself - sharp, brave and intuitive.'
Jordan Lynch, The F Word 'It is a book to hold close, an amulet that transmutes the intensities of grief into something uplifting'

Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian

'Form is elastic, and content is elusive... Chakraborty writes poems that are full of life and joy even when she is thinking through violence and grief, but in their sweep they defy easy notions of aboutness... Here, words themselves are weapons'
Elisa Gabbert, New York Times

'[Arrow] summons forth breathless visions and sonorous prophecies in a wry and dazzling oracular collection... this is an awe-inspiring, soaring debut; both epic and distilled.'
Poetry Book Society Autumn Selections Reviews

'I stand in awe of Sumita Chakraborty's visionary collection, by turns epic and compressed in scope, weighty in its tapestry-like materiality and sleekly dynamic as an arrow. The mythic and literary, here, are invigorated by seeming autobiography, which in turn gains collective energy and heft from the poems' imeless tropes and themes. Seamless and diverse in form, cosmic in subject and image, one feels in the presence of an oracular intelligence and an abiding lyric imagination.'
Diane Seuss, author of Four-Legged Girl and Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl
'About a quarter of the way through Sumita Chakraborty's Arrow, the reader encounters an impossible poem called 'Dear, beloved'. It's impossible because who could write it? It's as large, in its way, as any epic, but as compressed as any lyric, and as beautiful as any lyric, but as foundational as any epic, but it seems to come after all things, though it seems, also, diurnal. And it's impossible also because it's a highlight, not the highlight, of Arrow, a debut as assured as any first or last book, as compelling as any, as well-made.'
Shane McCrae, author of The Gilded Auction Block and In the Language of My Captor

Awards won by Sumita Chakraborty Winner, 2021 The Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize
(Arrow) Short-listed, 2021 The Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize
(Arrow)

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Sumita Chakraborty Books by this author: Arrow About Reviews Awards Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, essayist, and scholar. She is Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Poetry at the University of Michigan, where she teaches literary studies and creative writing. In 2017, she received a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and in 2018, her poem ‘And death demands a labor’ was shortlisted for a Forward Prize for Best Single Poem by the Forward Arts Foundation. Formerly, she was poetry editor of AGNI Magazine and art editor of At Length. 'Arrow by Sumita Chakraborty is a marvelous collection for both the maximalist and minimalist. Here are brief lyrics, prose essays, parables, lengthy lineated epics - and all of them given life with language stretched and pummelled into shape. Dealing in myth, astronomy, autobiography, philosophy, physics and metaphysics, Chakraborty possesses a singular outlook and the tone of a prophet.' Nick Laird, Chair of the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collections Poetry Prize Judges '... a book of consistent quality... whose constituent poems work together to form a totality of such richness and ambition. [Chakraborty has] a voice distinguished by its remarkable ability to combine the intellectual with the emotional, the abstract with the somatic, the essayistic with the lyrical' Padraig Regan, Seamus Heaney Centre 'This powerful and endlessly mysterious collection of poems is a book of fables, of spells, of revised narratives, and of realigned songs, brightly lifted above our bodies by music that is as unpredictable as it is marvelous. The lyricism is everywhere apparent as Sumita Chakraborty addresses us, our bodies and their stories, our planet, and our sense of time itself. How does she do it? Mad Ireland hurt him into poetry, W. H. Auden wrote about Yeats, and as the hurt enters Chakraborty's language, we see that in speech violated, sounds and meanings - and even the oldest of human mysteries, like "the etymology of love" - are redefined. All one can do is repeat: this is an endlessly compelling book. Bravo.' Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic 'Arrow is rich: it is a collection to truly lose yourself in - you could spend hours gleefully unpicking and analysing all the clever references and imagery, or simply let the writing wash over you like a cold sea wave, painful but invigorating... It is the perfect collection for lovers of contemporary poetry: strongly rooted in poetic traditions, with themes and language that make it feel fresh and exhilarating. Arrow feels like an extension of Sumita Chakraborty herself - sharp, brave and intuitive.' Jordan Lynch, The F Word 'It is a book to hold close, an amulet that transmutes the intensities of grief into something uplifting' Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian 'Form is elastic, and content is elusive... Chakraborty writes poems that are full of life and joy even when she is thinking through violence and grief, but in their sweep they defy easy notions of aboutness... Here, words themselves are weapons' Elisa Gabbert, New York Times '[Arrow] summons forth breathless visions and sonorous prophecies in a wry and dazzling oracular collection... this is an awe-inspiring, soaring debut; both epic and distilled.' Poetry Book Society Autumn Selections Reviews 'I stand in awe of Sumita Chakraborty's visionary collection, by turns epic and compressed in scope, weighty in its tapestry-like materiality and sleekly dynamic as an arrow. The mythic and literary, here, are invigorated by seeming autobiography, which in turn gains collective energy and heft from the poems' imeless tropes and themes. Seamless and diverse in form, cosmic in subject and image, one feels in the presence of an oracular intelligence and an abiding lyric imagination.' Diane Seuss, author of Four-Legged Girl and Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl 'About a quarter of the way through Sumita Chakraborty's Arrow, the reader encounters an impossible poem called 'Dear, beloved'. It's impossible because who could write it? It's as large, in its way, as any epic, but as compressed as any lyric, and as beautiful as any lyric, but as foundational as any epic, but it seems to come after all things, though it seems, also, diurnal. And it's impossible also because it's a highlight, not the highlight, of Arrow, a debut as assured as any first or last book, as compelling as any, as well-made.' Shane McCrae, author of The Gilded Auction Block and In the Language of My Captor Awards won by Sumita Chakraborty Winner, 2021 The Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize (Arrow) Short-listed, 2021 The Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize (Arrow)	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog Not a Moment Too Soon: Frank Kuppner read more Coco Island: Christine Roseeta Walker read more that which appears: Thomas A Clark read more Come Here to This Gate: Rory Waterman read more Near-Life Experience: Rowland Bagnall read more The Silence: Gillian Clarke read more
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