Dialect of Distant Harbors / Dipika Mukherjee / 2022
Despite a pen trained in craft, Mukherjee’s writing fails to find its rhythm in this collection. I had Anushka read a couple of poems to make sure I wasn’t just untrained in picking up the rhythms of a more Indian English, and she couldn’t make it through them. While Mukherjee picks complex material, she doesn’t have enough of a vision to say anything too profound about them in this collection. I read on despite Anushka’s suggestion that my time was better spent elsewhere. 1.5/5