The Salt of Something New

<p><em>The Salt of Something New</em> is the debut of Dublin-based poet Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan. The poems explore love and attraction, excitement and disappointment, responding to the city both as homeplace and site of ongoing discoveries and negotiations.Throughout, there is a lightness of touch and a precision that reminds us of the poet's abiding interest in science and nature, the fruits of which further extend the range of this memorable debut.</p><p></p><p>"The trajectory of cultures crossing and intersecting is striking in this fresh and powerful collection of poems. The voice is electric, its sense of urgency hammered to a gleam of language and rhythm both arresting and moving. Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan offers her readers an existential watermark, one that urges us to consider prayer, prophecy, power and womanhood and how fidelity to a city and new country forms part of an exciting treasury of language, emotion, and the self." -Mary O'Donnell</p><p></p><p>"From Border Control to Busáras, Annaghmakerrig to Armagh, The Salt of Something New is a moving mosaic of home. Exultant, tender, <em>real</em>, Narayanan-Mohan is a poet of place and community, a cartographer of the work and intimacy of rooting. Nothing sums up the collection better than the emotional precision of this line break, from a poem about the Irish naturalisation ceremony: 'There is no republic that can contain me / Like you'." -Gustav Parker Hibbett</p><p></p>