Gravity Prevails

Deeply aware of the centuries-old history, geography, and culture of the land spanning Texas and Mexico, Kamala Platt offers in Gravity Prevails the richness of re-memories of this living, breathing colonized geography that continues to nurture its inhabitants, human, animal, and flora. In rich lyricism, sonorous with Spanish, Indian and English languages, the poet hears men and women from the past, echoed by seedlings calling the names of the living and the departed. We are woken up to recognize the plants and the birds that make our lives beautiful but whose lives have become more and more precarious in our "civilization" with its "man-generated climate change." Will nature continue to prevail? Egrets return even when they are displaced, but some plants are unable to return when we destroy the soil. Kamala feels with the earth. She writes, "Gardeners work with the soil....a living ecosystem," cognizant of the body's dance with the earth, listening to its heartbeat and learning from it how to live. Kamala's "Gravity Prevails" is an urgent plea to us to pay attention to our injustice toward indigenous and marginalized people, to the planet itself, and, therefore, live life protecting Earth mother, Pachamama, who protects us. This volume is essential reading for anyone with a conscience.

- Pramila Venkateswaran, poet laureate of Suffolk County, NY, and author of The Singer of Alleppey (Shanti Arts, 2018)