Prairie Lights

Iowa City author Andy Douglas will read from Songs of the New Dawn: Selected song-poems of Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. The poems are in the vein of Rumi or Hafiz, speaking of the divine energy flowing through all creation. The book also features twenty full-page illustrations by artist Kindle Corwell, depicting subtle aspects of the poems, bringing out their beauty even more. This event will feature poetry reading, a display of art from the book, and music from multiinstrumentalist Craig Klocke and fiddle player Thia Rolfe.

“Andy Douglas’s stirring ‘transpirations’ echo a world of transcendental beauty. These poems bring to an English-speaking audience some of the 5018 Bengali songs composed by Shrii Prabhát Ranjan Sarkar between 1982 and 1990, songs that came to be known as Prabháta Samgiita, Songs of a New Dawn. An extraordinary spritual master, Shrii Sarkar once defined mysticism as ‘the never-ending endeavor to find a link between the finite and the infinite.’ Each song glows with this spirit of ceaseless search, and Douglas’s renditions beautifully capture the delicacy of feeling and simplicity of the original Bengali.” – Dr. Ayesha Irani, Assoc Prof of Asian Studies, UMass Boston

Andy Douglas is a writer and musician, and student of P R Sarkar’s teachings for 40 years.  He holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from University of Iowa.  He is the author of The Curve of the World: Into the Spiritual Heart of Yoga, and Redemption Songs: A Year in the Life of a Community Prison Choir.  He lives in Iowa City.