Chez Robert Giron

Kim Roberts who is the editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly has a new chapbook out entitled The Kimnama, published by VRZHU Press of Washington, DC.

With The Kimnama Kim Roberts has documented her visit to India in a way that is both unique and informative. As the title suggests, Roberts provides the reader with clues of India's rich multifaceted culture:

Ganesh is a chubby smiling
elephant-headed god,
the first son of Shiva and Parvati.

...


The smell of the streets
grows sharper at night.
Spices, wood smoke,

dust, cattle, and sweat. Chandan,
a sandalwood paste,
used in Hindu temple rites.

The burned smell of chapatti,
round wheat bread made
over an open flame.

The faint smell of drying flowers
strung together
in orange garlands.

Incense, more spice. And more dust.
Dust wrapping
everything in a thin coat

that gets inside your nostrils,
that enters your food,
that cannot be washed away.

...

Here is a quick-read chapbook in which one can find a hint of India's vast history and culture as well as its mystery and draw. From its temples to its smell of flowers, food and fires rising up in pujas (religious prayers). What this accomplishes is that it bids one to visit India, and perhaps the visitor will one day create his/her own personal history capturing those prescient moments in the East's enchanted land we call India.


Visit VRZHU Press: Kim Roberts at VRZHU Press