a fox peeks out: poems

Winner, Honorable Mention for Poetry, 2012 San Francisco Book Festival. Psychiatrist and writer Ravi Chandra delivers poems honed on the spoken-word circuit and softer meditations on spirituality, life, medicine and technology. iPads, Buddhas, and Facebook all point the way to enlightenment, or at least provide for some decent companionship along the way. Also included are poems from the collaborative performance Fox and Jewel, a work in support of Japantown, San Francisco in the face of redevelopment.

Whether the fox peeks out or speaks out, any lover of poetry is sure to be delighted, surprised, and provoked by this appealing debut volume of verse. Humor and gravitas abound and reveal a world “rich with tones / plied with tendencies / wrapped in layers.”

Buddhism, war and peace, echoes of 9/11 and the Cambodian genocide are wayfarers here, traveling on metrical feet. The poet takes them to heart, and looks for a way to heal.

Writers Digest Self Publishing Competition had this to say: "A Fox Peeks Out by Ravi Chandra is a clever collection of poems that works. Integrating elements of common life, current technology, and an impressive understanding of each, I loved these lines. The slam poetry is especially effective, with lines such as
'Transmitters stream lines through space and sky
send our avatars zenlike to altars named Zenith
where the lines you speak dance life in my soul
and the mind becomes fluid where lines cannot.'


Well done. I hope Ravi Chandra seeks out publication through a poetry press in the future. I'd love to see a book of his slam."

Poet Yuri Kageyama says: "A lot of poetry, probably including much of my own, is destructive, addressing inner turmoils to give them a form of expression as literature than other equally tempting but less acceptable, perhaps even criminal, outlets. Such is the madness of the world around us, the abuse that we take and the psychosis we battle by the day.
"Ravi Chandra's poetry is the voice of calm, the antidote of therapy, the ointment of peace. Perhaps it is because he is a medical doctor and psychiatrist that he seeks to heal not only internal wounds but almost the entire world around us with his debut poetry book 'a fox peeks out _ poems.' (San Francisco: Pacific Heart Books, 2011) He juxtaposes the technology of the Internet with the tradition of Asian religions in the same poetic breath that is our American experience.
"Other types of slam poetry may be identified with street violence and the defiance of oppression. Chandra’s slam poetry is more like the chamomile tea you sip before bedtime.
"His works read almost like a prayer, asking God to keep us safe through another day:
'Heart like earth
Mind like sky
No walls, no weapons, no war'
"The power to soothe and unify through the word involves a risky balance to keep between artistry and platitude. Chandra pulls it off with the intelligence of a scholar, the insight of a master and, most important, the benevolence of a saint."

'Mountains do get built from earthquakes,
great masses of earth pushing into each other,
Pushing the ground up,'

he writes in 'subprime tsunamis.' 'Greed must be contained by wisdom.
Compassion must be the greatest power.
Only so, can the waters purify.
Only so, can earthquakes
give ascent,
instead of annihilation.'"

Ravi Chandra, M.D. is a psychiatrist and writer in San Francisco, California. He is a graduate of Brown University and Stanford University Medical School, and completed a psychiatry residency at the University of California, San Francisco. He works in community mental health and private practice, and writes a regular blog for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival ("Memoirs of a Superfan"), as well as “The Pacific Heart” blog for Psychology Today.