Tiny Extravaganzas

Dynamic diction is the pulsing heart of Mehta’s excellent second book (after Forests with Castanets). Eschewing traditional narrative structures, she opts to create soundscapes that reflect and reinterpret events through a fragmented syntax: “Flingabout night swung in with dead leaves and young bats/ screeching. Acrobatic papers, phonemes scatting.” Mehta’s approach to rhythm and rhyme upends traditional verse forms with phrasing that moves like jazz, both against and within established poetic traditions. She offers readers dazzling observations: “all afternoon, pink petals flung about/ saddling seasons of new fruit to scent/ the mellow air all the way to heaven” (“Rhododendron & the Maple”). Emotions, nature, and existential musings intertwine in masterful arrangements: “I recite my way to heaven, pretending/ to be young, but still on page one,/ amending speech, and matching sounds/ to memories when love was rose-orange/ sundowns and noise was grand.” Proposing an ideal of art as an embodiment of love experienced through the music of language, Mehta writes, “I cannot rogue my syllables and improvise around/ temptation ears like yours but love the glut, the secret, the grand/ distortions of your polyphonic heart, which believes in ghost tones.” These poems adeptly balance simple and sophisticated diction to conjure a rich acoustic landscape. (Oct.)