Poetry. Top Debut Collection of 2015, Poets and Writers. "This is a book of great beauty and of terrible suspicion regarding that beauty. This is a poet of intensifying linguistic gift and of terrible suspicion regarding that gift. Is there, yet, an Auto-Voyeuristic school of poetry? If not, then Jay Deshpande's troubling and gorgeous LOVE THE STRANGER—'watch yourself grow muscle in your failures / and hate it'—could be the founding document."—Josh Bell "Deshpande tracks those moments when we become strange to ourselves, when indecision and failure wrench us open. He writes with a kind of glowing, dreamlike clarity about desire, distraction, regret—the ways we rush past ourselves, the ways we hurt each other. This book is full of searching and light."—Joanna Klink "Elegant, dreamy, and hauntingly charismatic, Deshpande's poems captivate the way the recordings of their patron saint Chet Baker do, insisting time after time that exceptional artistry can spin even radical loneliness and excruciating sensitivity into music that radiates and affirms. Provoking 'a hunger become so animal' then tranquilizing it with 'orchestrated moonlight,' LOVE THE STRANGER is a book, a shady neighborhood, and a mood that readers will return to again and again."—Timothy Donnelly

Love the Stranger

Literature & Fiction

Deshpande, Jay

Poetry

YesYes Books

Poetry. What use is poetry in a world shaped by suffering? Set in an Italian castle during a time of global crisis, this sonnet sequence takes up age-old questions about the ethics of art and the risks of comfort. With lush images and deep urgency, Deshpande makes an argument for beauty amidst chaos, violence and loss.

The Umbrian Sonnets

PANK Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Deshpande, Jay. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Deshpande, Jay

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Deshpande, Jay. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Love the Stranger

The Umbrian Sonnets