Resurrecting forgotten souls

As is evidenced in his earlier books of poems, the poetry of Debashish Lahiri has consciously endeavored to bring together cultural traditions, historical monuments, art galleries and archives, not just from India, his place of origin, but from the entire world.

- SANJUKTA DASGUPTA

Lahiri's poetry spans the archives and the arcane to their presence in the present, reclaiming the significance of forgotten relics that assert their relevance in the second millennium. Increasingly in his books of poems that have been published to date, one cannot fail but notice the voice of the scholar-poet for whom the world is home.

In his recently published book of poems, Legion of Lost Letters, subtitled Dramatic Monologues of Romans in Exile, Lahiri's initiatory poem, 'Ovid Contemplates Writing his Fasti at Tomis' is a direct reference to poet Ovid's exile to Tomis, having earned the wrath of Emperor Augustus, as he exposed the covert immorality in the emperor's own household, despite the emperor presenting himself as a stern advocate of morality and ethics. According to experts, Ovid could not complete his intended 12-part poem, Fasti, during his period of exile at Tomis. Just 6 parts of Fasti, which deal with each calendar month of a year, seem to have either survived, or Ovid could have left the long poem incomplete. The anguish and lament of the exiled poet resonate in Lahiri's lines, 'My memories of Rome not near enough/for verse./ Caesar, the poet's gold/is the pestilent dew in my ribs/My spittoon glows in the dark.