The Long Meadow

“Grave and witty, classical and contemporary, The Long Meadow is a casually brilliant collection of poems. Vijay Seshadri is a writer of subtle, elastic and unblinking intelligence….Thematically, Seshadri asks big questions and addresses big issues—time and consciousness, suffering and devotion—but for all their deep seriousness of purpose, his poems refuse to take themselves too seriously….Profound and delightful, The Long Meadow well deserves the high distinction bestowed upon it by the James Laughlin Award.” —Statement from Campbell McGrath, head juror for James Laughlin Award

“What a deeply moving, eloquent, huge-hearted, and razor-eyed (not to mention brilliantly crafted) book The Long Meadow is!” —Thomas Lux

Vijay Seshadri’s first collection of poems, Wild Kingdom, was celebrated as one of the most exciting debuts in years. In The Long Meadow, Seshadri presents a brilliant array of formally inventive and emotionally powerful new poems in which the poet’s wit and vivacity are poised against the alarming complexities of human experience. Through disparate forms and strategies, from the long narrative and the brief rhyming lyric to the prose meditation, The Long Meadow looks into and through our troubled world by means of a poetic sensibility that transforms history into metaphysics and disaster into possibility. Here is the voice of one of contemporary poetry’s new masters.