Convolution: A Chapbook of Poetry and Visuals by Anil CS Rao,
Cyberwit.net, India, 2011 pp. 59, ISBN: 978-8182532113

While reading Anil CS Rao’s poetry I was reminded of a very apt observation made by the great Romantic poet Keats. In one of his letters, Keats says: "First I think that poetry should surprise by fine excess and not by singularity-it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. Second, its touches of Beauty should never be half way, thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of delight." This is very true about the poem "Soma". Rao affirms that Soma has no physical entity. It is ‘a state of mind’. Similarly, the following lines are the pure magic:

Don’t write it.
Don’t send it.
Listen to your wife
And BEHAVE.
"Hate" p. 6

Moreover, the greatest

This term is relative to:
Culture;
Creed;
District;
State:
Country;
Planet;
Help me here and now!
"Evil" p. 2

The above observation by F.R. Leavis is aptly subtantiated in the cocluding lines:

The Tao of the rice paddy replaces the
Adharma of the Beef Factory.  p. 50

The collection includes very artistic 37 pictures that add to the beauty and amazing charm of the book. Like D. G. Rossetti, Rao is both painter and poet. He presents the immense variety and panorama of contemporary life-Goody Goody people devoid of style and imagination, London in the winter season, Spencer’s in Vijayawada, a small village in Andhra, Red Light District in Eluru, tobacco, sex, booze, zazen, samadhi, Bodhisatva, BR Films, Julie Andrews, Zen, Art of Breathing, JFK Birthplace, Heart Chakra, K. Balachandar, K. Viswanath, Bollywood, Sridevi.

"Here is God’s plenty".

Anil CS Rao is an artist and writer presently based in Andhra Pradesh in South India. He has lived in the West from the age of 4 prior to obtaining "dual citizenship" and relocating to his Mother Land in 2010. His mixed media / photoshop artwork has been exhibited in galleries in the States, Europe and in India.   His wife, Padmaja is a painter and together they explore synergies with respect to their combined talents - a.k.a. "Padnil Arts" in the creation of publications and computer animated films.