A return to light

There are very few Indian writers who make a living out of their writing

For emerging poets like me, C P Surendran has been a poet in absentia for much of our reading life. He has been known to us as a literary figure — novelist, screenplay writer, and of course, journalist — but his poetry has eluded us, because till now, most of his books of poems were out of print. We caught glimpses of his poetry in anthologies, such as the one edited by his friend Jeet Thayil a few years back. There were also hints that Surendran’s poetic career was over. This new “collected poems” puts such speculations to rest and