Tomorrow Someone Will Arrest You
“These vital, beautiful poems burn with a radically illuminating rage.”
All discipline a deception to hide the wildness, all symmetry an excuse for keeping count.
These poems chronicle wanting, art-making, and the practising of resistance and solidarity in the face of a hostile state. Here the personal is political: Kandasamy moves between sex, desire and family and the wider questions of caste, the refugee crisis and freedom of expression, with grace and defiance. The title poem was written after two of her friends were arrested under terror laws.
“With a cerebral poise reminiscent of Paul Celan, she navigates a torrent of shapeshifting images … The succinct clarity of Kandasamy’s poems, free from prevarication and dissemblance, is invigorating.” — Sylvee Gore, Poetry Foundation
“An unstoppable poetic-surging into a rallying cry that denounces the injustices of caste and gender and right-wing state terror.” — Poetry Book Society
“An extraordinary exploration into a deep vulnerability and truth; Meena Kandasamy is an incredibly beautiful poet, prophetic, powerful and empowering.” — Salena Godden
Read Manash Bhattacharjee on the title poem in the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Sylvee Gore’s review for the Poetry Foundation.