English Kaliedoscope Poem 07: Time and Time Again

A.K. Ramanujan is one of India’s finest English-language poets. He is best known for his pioneering translations of ancient Tamil poetry into modern English. At the time of his death he was professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago and was recognised as the world’s most profound scholar of South Indian languages and culture.

His interests included anthropology and folklore. These influenced his work as a craftsman of English. This poem represents the complex distillation of a lifetime of unusual thought and feeling.