[Reader-list] Book Release of Boki by Nitoo Das

[Shivam V]

THE ATTIC 36 REGAL BUILDINGS, NEW DELHI TEL: 23746050

wednesday 12th november

5.00 pm Book Release of Boki by Nitoo Das. Publishers: Virtual Artists
Collective

Boki, Nitoo Das' first poetry collection, plays around with given
grammars, words and voices. With the skill of a ventriloquist, she
gives language to several personae in her dramatic monologues and her
soundscapes create a sensory world with words that slip and slide into
each other. Das' painterly eye captures precise and stark visual
images that make us look at the ordinary with fresh eyes. Boki--a word
that means nothing in English, but in "Doiboki", the poem it's in, it
stands for a shouted syllable, a taunt, a song, a deconstruction of
someone's name…A 'nonsense' word that brings so much from its two
syllables is surely what poetry is about--the creation of image from
sound. To bok in Assamese, Das' first language, means to mutter/speak
meaninglessly and repetitively. The Sanskrit word, Vak, from which
this irreverent Assamese derivative takes its origins, means Speech.
And Nitoo Das' Boki speaks in an explosion of images in which she
demonstrates an uncanny ability to create poems that surprise us, hold
us and move us.

Boki will be released by teacher, critic, novelist and poet, GJV
Prasad and will be followed by readings from the collection by Nitoo
Das.

Nitoo Das is a Senior Lecturer of English at Indraprastha College for
Women, University of Delhi. She was born in Guwahati, but came to
Delhi for her higher studies and decided to stay on and learn various
survival skills in this ancient city. She runs a blog that began as an
experiment over three years ago while working on a research project on
poetry as hypertext. Her interests include fractals, caricatures,
comic books, horror films, and studies of online communities. Boki is
her first collection.