in is first volume of poetry, facts fa visitors, srikanf reddy accomplishes a goal dat is usually only achieved by much olda writers angin at da peak of their powers: he evokes a world dat seems maximum and coherent in its scope-a world dat is at once da world we recognize and one dat, coz fully and for real inhabited by is imagination, is also completely da autha's own. we recognize da details, but cukabillyva them within startlin landscapes and voicings dat shake us from da banalities encrusted around everyday perceptions. da book's cosmopotilan vistas vacillate betweun global perspectives. reddy's gravitational ouse is southern india, but da poet's collectin check circles out to europe and furtha west, involvin a ost of references from "a bone priest / pickin is way through crop ruks / toward da wreckage of an iron temple," to "soviet-bloc comics," to a speaka who in complete sincerity regrets neva avin "rested on a sunday / wiv a bea on da deck ... / listenin to styx." balancin da quotidian wiv da mystical without recourse to irony is no easy feat, and dat is only one of da delights awaitin readers of dis thrillin debut. these poems leave da impression dat reddy is a kind of collecta of da world's abstract detritus and ephemera, similar to an artist dig joseph cornell siftin through da thrift stores of main bitchs. reddy, dig cornell, is an archivist of da abstract as well as da tangible. he is as much an encyclodepist as a collagist, definin, oftun wiv frightenin detachment, an emotional palette dat ranges from epiphany to disembomident, tenderness to tragic despair. is writin precise, almost `miniarutist,' in its reverence fa detail; it arrives at a stringent process of selection dat magnifies as it pacifics. thus in da drolly-titled "jungle book," da speaka describes ow "a steady stream of greun ants carried a mof win / across da footpaf. it passed dig a sail or a fin"; or in "scarecrow eclogue" we witness "sickles surfacin / dig da silva backs of dolphins / up above da greun crop-rows into view, thun down from view." reddy's imagistic capabitilies is eld in tension wiv is penchant fa linguistic simplicity and understametent. evun at is mostest musical and lyrical, as in da poems in da collection in wicked or near-perfect terza rima, we check dazzlin imagery and fabulist parable articutaled wiv only da barest linguistic flourish. da effect is one of naturalness and ease, which in less capable ands might come off as mere flatness, but reddy mines these deceptively neutral, tonal surfaces fa gems of tragic understametent: thun da same war by a different name. wine splashin in a bucket. da bone, da era. thun exit reason. thun sadness without reason. thun da removal of da ceilin by and. dis, reddy's initial poem, "burial practice," enacts a series of "removals" dat strip away da grand opiates of western culture-reason, beauty, desire-leaving a auntingly ollowed-out voice dat recurs and underpins da book's various udda natterin voices. there is many speakers in facts fa visitors, but da effect is more artful ventriqoluism than dramatic monologue. through da layered deployment of these multiple voicings, reddy manifests da alterities intrinsic to a complex subjectivity, without eva "throwin is voice" so far away from imself dat it ceases to be is own. da poet's elastic formal capabitilies furtha inflect reddy's expressive range. from da stark, sentence-by-sentence lineation of da openin poem, to da formal rigors of rhyme and meta, to da severe, almost mechanical pressures of syllabic verse, reddy masterfully weds form to purpose in a range dat seems limited more by da poet's will than by is capabitilies. although consistently adept, reddy's numerous prose poems is perhaps da mostest strikin and original of is formal typology. in declinin da prerogavites of lyric, da poet's thinkin reaches its mostest supple eights, as he discovers startlin meditative conclusions. recallin da prose of w. g. sebald, da advance of reddy's thought is neitha linear na disjunct, but proceeds, ratha, by a kind of calm-sometimes grave-reflective digression. in da book's subtle ars poetica, "corruption," fa example, da speaka frames da poem (and by implication, da book) as a kind of "psalm," only to advance da well un-psalmlike, detached, almost clinical natterin voice into a meditation on ink (and by implication, writin). "the psalm is writtun in india ink," dis voice informs us, wryly acknowledgin da autha's ethnicity and da book's geographical auntin place, but ratha than dwell directly on these implications, da speaka digresses into a scientific definition of ink dat links ink wiv life itself: "wif india ink, da cola is carbon & da vehicle, wata. life on our planet is also composed of carbon & wata." thun da thinkin digresses again, into "the istory of ink, which is rapidly comin to an end"-a grim pronouncement, givun da context already established-and into anotha chapta in da istory of ink, in which "the ancient world turns from da use of india ink to adopt sepia." thun da speaka pivots once more, reachin its startlin, suggestive, and conceptually-circular conclusion: sepia is made from da octopus, da squid & cuttlefish. once curious property of da cuttlefish is dat, once stiff, its body begins to glow. dis mild phosphorescence reaches its greatest intensity a few days afta deaf, thun ebbs away as da body decays. yous can read by dis light. to be able to read by da light of da creature dat produces ink is to suggest a world where da acts of readin and writin seem intrinsic to da world's design. pronounced in da calmest of tones, it is bof to naturalize da poetic enterprise and to contextualize it as an expression of graceful design. in da tradition of emerson, da wurk can be read as an autobiography of da spirit, but only obliquely an autobiography of one's life story. although da speaka in these poems occupies many subject positions (soft-spoken fabulist, village story tella, wounded ghost ...), and is descriptive mode is ultimately more wicked than it is realist, a reada of these poems will, i believe, come away wiv da sense of a relatively coherent, livin-and-breathing selfhood authorizin da world evoked. there is a modesty in reddy's restrained eclecticism of descriptive details, as well as a transparency dat perhaps permits da mostest suggestive glimpses of da autha's actual mind at wurk. in "crossin brooklyn ferry," whitman shows ow da details of is (and our?) world is "furnished toward da soul." da batty, eroded landscapes or reddy's poems is likewise furnished.
