Undecember: The Thirteenth Month

About the Book

A solar year consists of twelve months. But if a lunar year has to correspond to a solar year, then an extra month is required. This leap month is 'Undecember'.

[...] This book represents a month of thirty days, divided into two sections: Sukla Paksha and Krishna Paksha - the Hindu demarcations for the waxing and waning phases of the moon - each comprising fifteen poems for the fifteen days of each phase.

These thirty poems convey the same ethos and sensibility of the previous book - being intensely personal and yet aesthetically accessible. The poems continue their play on Sringara Rasa of love and beauty mediated by the sense of viraha.

Amit Shankar Saha is the Koh-i-Noor of poets, a priceless Indian diamond that shines most brilliantly among English [writers]. Who else could transform a missing tooth into a multifaceted meditation on mortality and identity? Or invoke the many-named splendors of his native land, and also invoke a cherished love life, via an imaginary tour through his own "country of rhododendrons," all in less than twenty short lines? Nearly every poem in this book is a treasure! I highly recommend it.