Under The Street Lamp
Under The Street Lamp
Poetry by Asit Maitra
£5.99 paperback
ISBN 978-1-903914-45-8
Asit Maitra: Biography
Asit Maitra, FRCS, MA (Creative Writing), NCL University, Emeritus A&E consultant, Newcastle NHS Hospitals Trust. His poems have appeared in:
- His chapbook, Chapati-Moon (ID on Tyne, 2007)
- A pamphlet, ZIG-ZAGS, with Pat Borthwick
- In Acumen (1997), Other Poetry (2002) and Anthologies: Norwich OPC (2004)
- The Redbeck Anthology of British South Asian Poetry (2000)
- Masala: Chosen - Poems from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka (Macmillan children's books, 2005)
- The Ticking Crocodile (Blinking Eye Poetry Competition anthology, 2004)
- His previous poetry collections from Biscuit Publishing, Sun Dips at Juhu Beach and Knife on the Edge.
In Under The Street Lamp, Asit Maitra takes up the painful task of dealing with the subject of Ovarian Cancer, appropriately this year, The International Ovarian Cancer Awareness Year.
For him, it is a personal journey recalling details through the eyes of a professional and a husband. He uses simple language that throbs with his passionate intensity and drive. The reader is saddened but hooked to read on to become part of the unfolding big story.
"Asit Maitra's third collection continues to show his keen surgeon's eye for cultural difference and its emotional ramifications, this time tempered by personal tragedy: the poems elegising his wife have a tender restraint that is all the more moving. Poems from his early pamphlet Chapatti Moon are gathered at the end, adding to the sense of time passing and to the poignancy of memory recovered in verse."
Prof. Bill Herbert, University of Newcastle.
"A third collection in three years from this skilled observer of cultural texture. Several of these poems carry the burden of personal loss with exactitude and restraint. This is his best book yet.
Wind whistles through the trees summer / And winter, cars speed up on the adjacent lane... / Otherwise it's quiet, he likes that. Then / Without warning that question buzzes in his head, / Like a trapped bee, 'Why?' 'Why?' ('Why')"
Other Poetry
