Waterbook

Dana Ranga’s poems are stations on a journey through the depths of the ocean and at the same time scenes from a sub-aquatic film. Against this strange underwater backdrop, fish and man encounter each other in a series of rapidly changing scenes, and the play of transformations begins: the air breathers grow gills and the deep-sea dwellers develop all too human passions.

There are innumerable pictures of the Earth seen from above, from space, from the point of view of the astronauts. But what do the Earth and its inhabitants look like from below, from the sea floor, seen with the eyes of a different species? What does a catfish, or an anglerfish, or an African knife fish see when it peers out of the darkness at its fellows – and at other species, such as us humans?