The law of Karma : a progression of poems

Abstract

The Law of Karma is a Hindu doctrine of the transmigration of souls. In this work each reincarnation of the original soul is carefully placed in a historical and geographical context. It is really one long poem comprising a 'progression' of sixty-six parts through eleven life cycles. This structure allows the images to interact directly, free from connective links - discursive or didactic. The basic theme of the poem is that each betrayal of human responsibility opens the way to another more degenerate betrayal. It begins with the saint's complacent distaste for people and ends, some five hundred years later, with complacent genocide. The poem is a tightly-worked unit of cross-references in verse and narrative forms, echoed images, and frequent recurrence of whole lines.