This is a graceful, deeply meditative debut from Kawita Kandpal."Folding a River", a collection of elegies, shows a pleasing range of free-verse forms that develop themes sustained throughout: loss, exile, myth, landscape. Kawita Kandpal's poems are explorations of East - West cultures, taking her into an emo-mythic place not to be found on any map. Kandpal's mood in "Folding a River" is melancholy, articulated with intelligence and grace, and her phrasing can rise to the level of proverb: "This time next year you will have evolved into an idea." In its personal evocations of geographical and linguistic exile from the subcontinent, centered on a lost father, her work recalls that of Li-Young Lee, yet with a feminine perspective often haunting in its own right: "tenderly/taking back the mistakes of men."