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Srikanth Reddy's first book
of poetry Facts for Visitors

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received the Asian American
Literary Award in 2005.

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His work has appeared
in various journals,

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including APR, Fence,
Grand Street, jubilat,

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and Ploughshares.

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A graduate of the Iowa Writers'
Workshop and doctoral candidate

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at the University
of Chicago, Reddy

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is currently an Assistant
Professor of English

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at the University of Chicago.

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Reddy's book Facts for Visitors
grapples with the known world

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and its edges, language,
death, and space,

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and pushes up against
what is unknown,

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both internal and external.

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By the last poem, we find
hints of the visitors

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to whom the book is
addressed as he writes,

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"in less than 40,000 years,
this craft will drift

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through the nearest system,
bearing greetings in 57

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languages, including the encoded
song of the humpback whale.

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By then, our tongue will
have crossed into extinction

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or changed utterly."

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Reddy's poems are voluptuous
with image and sensory detail,

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traveling from a rusty
black knife, which

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unseams the sunset to milky
earth at the river's edge.

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Or the sky's darkest plumage,
flashing fresh streaks of lilac

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in this ocean, my ink pot.

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The sound and feel of this
book's words in one's mouth

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is at once pleasurable
and rending.

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The luscious language
of these poems

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is weighted by the poignancy
of Reddy's writing--

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poignancy at a slight
remove, as though we

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are being offered the
world by an observer who

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is transparent or only
partially present,

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allowing the light and dark
of the represented world

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to pass through them
with little distortion.

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Each poem endeavors to pin
down an experience as something

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which can be
articulated and shared.

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And yet the world of
this book is a world

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in which the emotion underlines
shared experience scatters

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like hundreds of
jackfruit blossoms

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in the wind of our breath.

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And so in the end, we find
ourselves mostly alone.

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It is my honor and
my great pleasure

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to introduce Srikanth Reddy.

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