A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes

“In Madhur Anand’s poems the ancient false dichotomy between art and science collapses, and does so with such grace, wit, and élan you’d think this had been its purpose all along. These poems are alive with the potency of their own hybrid attentions – rapt, nimble, and capable of unlocking the energies asleep in eco-scientific jargon as well as popular culture and the poet’s Indian heritage. Here is a writing full of linguistic and conceptual verve, essential reading for all of us interested in poetry and the ecological arts.”
—Don McKay, Griffin Poetry Prize–winning author of Strike/Slip

“Anand’s exquisitely crafted debut poetry collection combines scientific, observational, socially conscious, haunting and reflexively personal, and almost Romantic strains into a cohesive, captivating whole… . [A] seemingly effortless, deeply humanist sleight of hand… . Anand’s attention to and ability to evoke explicit, exponential beauty in scientific and natural form are simply stunning… . Anand’s debut is in every measure a triumph.”
—Publishers Weekly

MADHUR ANAND’s debut book of prose, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart (2020), won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her debut collection of poems, A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes (2015), was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry and named one of ten all-time “trailblazing” poetry collections by the CBC. Her second collection of poems, Parasitic Oscillations (2022), was published to international acclaim and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year. She is a professor of ecology and sustainability at the University of Guelph, where she was appointed the inaugural Director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research.

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