Forest with Castanets (Stahlecker Selections)

Praise for Forest with Castanets (Stahlecker Selections)

“Candor and music are Diane Mehta’s great strengths as an artist, and with them she brings fresh, stereotype-busting insight to subjects like ethnicity, marriage, sex, religion, the multiple, intertwined horrors and gifts of the past: the force of the storm and the answering force of human struggles and constructions. It’s thrilling to read a poet who masters that range of material so lucidly, in her own distinctive way.” —Robert Pinsky

“. . . . Mehta, in Forest with Castanets, reminds us of just what striking poetry can emerge from an imagination disciplined and venturesome enough to take advantage of the rich, complicated histories that we are all given, and in doing this she manages to compose and sing the ‘sea-chants of dead immigrants.’ Diane Mehta is a poet of unquestionable skill and authority who has learned to ground her poems in the most intimate and difficult institution, the family.” —Kwame Dawes

“In her innovative debut, Mehta explores the connection between place, memory, and sound, offering a vision of ‘ex-colonial hills,’ their ‘songs lilting,’ their ‘repetitions hell.’ Discrete poems and hybrid texts are unified by their vibrant sonic textures....” Read the full review.
— Publishers Weekly

"A beautiful book....Prose is tucked among her verse—I hope more poets follow her lead, and be generous with genre—making Forest with Castanets a uniquely arranged collection...." Read the full review.
— Nick Ripatrazone

"...For­est with Cas­tanets gives Mehta, and by exten­sion the read­er, time to move through the emo­tion­al moments that col­lect around a large event. This time is a kind­ness, one we are lucky to have Mehta share with us when life is so often cut short."
— Eliz­a­beth Dean­na Mor­ris Lakes