‘The grasp of things redeems the fury of time.’
– The Grasp of Things
A peculiar atmosphere pervades the poems in Aishwarya Iyer’s poetry collection, The Grasp of Things. Divided into four sections, Tarred City, Metre of Breath, Ache of Forms and North, these exquisitely constructed poems use language to deconstruct the coordinates of what it is to live, be, and become.
The poems which most resonated with this reviewer are those which use language, in form of speech-acts, to uncover how ‘the subject’ i.e., the ‘I’, becomes intelligible. While it is known that Lacanian psychoanalysis is premised on the subject’s coming into being in and through language, Iyer’s poems convincingly show us the process of such becoming. As we read along, we also realize that this subject is gendered, viz., female, and this slant not only adds subtle, inexplicable richness to the poems, but also expands their meaning.