Memory Map by Tara Prakash

“Written with keen vision, these tales draw me in. I see through the poet’s eye, and listen to her heart. Best of all, I feel her longing, her love. I am transported as her young hand holds my senses and brings me with her through visions which become my memories, too. Memory Map is a priceless journey. “

–Ann Compton, former ABC News White House correspondent

“It’s unusual when writers get better each time they unlimber their fingers, but Tara Prakash is that rare bird. I’ve followed her work for several years, and am always impressed. This collection shows her talent, her breadth and her passion. This is a major young voice in the writing cosmos.”

–Bob Levey, retired columnist, The Washington Post

Tara Prakash‘s Memory Map is an extraordinary debut collection, with all the elements that transform life into art: story, craft, language. These poems begin with the poet’s experience, illuminated by imagery, perception, and emotion. It’s a reader’s privilege to share Prakash’s reality, her specific moments in time.

–Grace Cavalieri, tenth Maryland Poet Laureate

Tara Prakash‘s Memory Map spins elegy into inquisition, into wonder. In this debut chapbook Tara’s formal dexterity drives her meditations on time, memory, & familial mortality. Tara’s precise image work marks the tension between ephemera & the materialities that document the living we cherish with those we love. Gorgeously & with syntactic prowess, Tara puts memory under a microscope, equally asking how one lives with the map memory makes of our lives, forgetting’s barren land, & time’s oscillating hand. Nature sings with consideration. Tara’s collection turns to grief & imparts, “if just once, my world could live forever, we wouldn’t be so lonely,/ But if all worlds lasted forever, Would new ones be born?”. Tara’s imagination & striking use of both narrative & lyric poems document that the real living is in the details. Prakash’s debut is an audaciously sensorial dedication to remembrance. These poems put love to work, & in doing so achieve the number one thing poems are supposed to do: make us, the reader, feel something.

–Nabila Lovelace, poet

“Tara’s poetry is democratic by nature in that it invites all readers in to reflect together on the universal experience of living, loving, mourning, and sanctifying. Tara is not an emerging poet in any sense of the expression. Tara’s poetry has arrived.”

–Rebecca Wallace-Segall, CEO & Founder, Writopia Lab