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Arun Kolatkar. Collected Poems in English. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, ed. Tarset, Northumberland, UK. Bloodaxe (Dufour, distr.). 2011 (©2010). 383 pages. £12/$27.95. isbn 978-1-85224- 853-6
Of all the Indian poets who came of age since independence, Arun Kolatkar (1931-2004) was one of the most successful internationally, yet the least concerned about success, literary recognition, or even publication. After Jejuri (1976), which established his reputation at home and abroad, he published virtually nothing until the end of his life, when friends and fellow poets such as Adil Jussawalla and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra helped him bring out two collections of poems in English (Kala Ghoda Poems and Sarpa Satra) and three in Marathi (Kolatkar's other literary language). These were followed, in 2009, by The Boatride and Other Poems, a collection of published...