India, Feb. 7 -- The poems in CP Surendran's Window With a Train Attached, are compact forms of a certain lyrical energy. Lines that sing and sting, lines that attempt to communicate the inexpressibility and the essence of our existence. There is lightness of seeing when the poet views the world, and the metaphors used are powerfully imagistic. The book contains 90-odd new poems, and a dozen representing his earlier body of work, spanning nearly four decades . But the new ones, especially, the 'quatrains', are a study of the craft of compression:

Below the years, behind your eyes, at the bottom of the clockA whole hill ticks away in a rose. We see it, but cannot feelIts razor breath in our face. The evening sows gold,Reaps coal. They bur...