Janavi Held

Letters to My Oldest Friend Janavi Held

Like many God-inspired poets of India's Bhakti or devotional past (Mirabai and Chandidas come easily to mind), Janavi Held - writer, photographer, cineaste, observer of small miracles - chronicles the arrhythmia of a heart in love with Divinity. Letters to My Oldest Friend is a revelation. In elegant, spare verse and contemplative visual imagery, she gently cautions that we are victims of speeding postmodernism at risk of losing our souls, and that we will find the tools of our salvation in the quiet, unassuming details of everyday life. Here is a much needed roadmap to our inner geography, chartered by a gifted voice of conscience and our own better selves. Read, look, savor, and be inspired.

-Joshua M. Greene