India, June 20 -- It began with a bout of homesickness.

While studying for a degree in economics at Yale in late-2020, Bilal Moin began to feel a yearning for Mumbai. He sought refuge in poems about the city, initially turning to classics by Arun Kolatkar, Adil Jussawalla and Dom Moraes.

After a while, he cast his net wider. Entering keywords into the university library archive, he discovered poets he had never heard of, their verses on Bombay preserved in journals and magazines long-since defunct.

Over snow-laden evenings in Connecticut, he expanded his search further still. He was now looking for poems on Kolkata, Delhi, Bengaluru. By the time Spring arrived, he had collected over 600 poems set across 40 Indian cities, spread across ...