Handwriting
Michael Ondaatje
<p><em>Handwriting</em> is a collection of exquisitely crafted poems of delicacy and power &#8211; poems about love, landscape, and the sweep of history set in the poet&#8217;s first home, Sri Lanka.</p><p>The falling away of culture is juxtaposed with an individual&#8217;s sense of loss, grief, and remembrance, as Ondaatje weaves a rich tapestry of images &#8211; the unburial of stone Buddhas, a family of stilt-walkers crossing a field, the pattern of teeth marks on skin drawn by a monk from memory.</p><p>And, like the poets who &#8220;wrote their stories on rock and leaf/to celebrate the work of the day,/the shadow pleasures of the night,&#8221; in these poems Ondaatje writes of desire and longing, the curve of a bridge against a woman&#8217;s foot, the figure of a man walking through a rainstorm to a tryst.</p><p><em>Handwriting</em> is a poetic achievement by a writer at the height of his creative powers. In it, we are reminded once again of Michael Ondaatje&#8217;s unique artistry with language and of his stature as one of the finest poets writing today.</p>