Handwriting : poems / Michael Ondaatje.

Ondaatje is undoubtedly best known for his novel, The English Patient, on which the award-winning film was based. Good as that novel was, it is still a pity that more people havent read his poetry, which is deeply evocative and suffused but never overburdened with sensuous imagery. Here he revisits his Sri Lankan heritage, re-creating the past in sparkling takes: Once we buried our libraries/ under the great medicinal trees/ which the invaders burned; And in our Book of Victories/ wherever you saw a parasol/ on the battlefield you could/ identify the king within its shadow. Buddhas abound, as do Cormorant Girls, saffron, rice, cattle bells, and, of course, water. A poem picks up one image, then starts the next few lines with another, so that images glance off the page, refusing to settle down into straightforward storytelling. The result is a sort of mosaic of feeling and light that is affecting reading.