In a commonplace book, you’d write a recipe, copy a proverb, jot down housekeeping advice, making a precious object out of ordinary things. Maitreyabandhu’s Commonplace Book, his first book-length poem, follows a year from the death of his Buddhist teacher while he navigates his own spiritual life and smarts at lost love. Part epyllion, part diary, it mingles tradition with innovation, comedy with tragedy, traversing the bardo between this life and the next.
Maitreyabandhu is a Buddhist teacher and writer. His first book-length collection, The Crumb Road (2013), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and was followed by Yarn (2015) and After Cézanne (2019).
Praise for Maitreyabandhu's poetry:
‘The best of these poems speak as much of psychological harm, uncertainty and the divisions we create as they do of unity, beauty, or well-adjusted contentment... In the end, though, the impression is of a poet who combines a self-effacing, observational stance with often searing, complicated feeling... Yarn is a collection where the transcendent promise of Buddhist enlightenment meets with the blunt reality of flawed humanity.’ – Ben Wilkinson, The Poetry Review.
‘Composed of four discrete but symbolically linked sections, Yarn embraces the spirit, if not the strict form, of Japanese renga poetry, where, according to John Kerrigan, "what holds between poems becomes intrinsic". Blackbirds, chaffinches and robins fly from poem to poem, perching on the profusion of cherry blossoms, apple trees and poplars, while gentle winds blow throughout the book. These images recur in shifting forms, accruing layers of symbolism as they bind Yarn, and give the impression of a collection reaching for something just beyond the horizon... At its best, Yarn suggests a way of apprehending the world with all its quiet beauty, yearning and loss, and suggests "another kind of memory" – one that moves you to "repair the day / in thought […] then listen out for echoes.’ – Frank Lawton, Times Literary Supplement
‘His skills with form and his brilliant capture of colloquial speech, his obviously profound engagement with Buddhist thought and his commitment to poetry as a form of expression make him a unique figure in the UK literary landscape.’ – Martyn Crucefix
'Maitreyabandhu’s poetry opens vistas. Reading his work is an unusual pleasure. He is a poet of journeys great and small – and the reader is privileged to be his companion.' – Carol Rumens, on The Crumb Road
‘Maitreyabandhu’s work beautifully, and seriously, contains the possibilities of what other traditions might call insight.’ – Fiona Sampson, Poetry Review, on The Crumb Road
‘A resoundingly authentic collection with no lapses in concentration. Maitreyabandhu’s understanding of Cézanne and his motivation are endlessly persuasive without ever crossing into presumption. A rich and intense book, unashamed of its erudition and its powerfully keen sight.’ – Sasha Dugdale on After Cézanne
‘All the aspects of Cézanne’s ordeal are fused together in Maitreyabandhu’s remarkable poems in which the varied forms of composition and wide range of reference provide a refreshingly unique insight into Cézanne’s art. What is achieved here is an incomparable poetic expression of the artist’s personal idiosyncrasies and manifold achievements.’ – Christopher Lloyd (Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures 1988-2005) on After Cézanne
‘These remarkable poems remind us of the close kinship between painting and poetry. Maitreyabandhu shares insights into Cézanne that can, perhaps, only be grasped through poetry. The poems speak eloquently of Cézanne’s art and of the experience of trying to comprehend a great artist.’ – Barnaby Wright, Deputy Head of the Courtauld Gallery, London, on After Cézanne
Maitreyabandhu launches Yarn in Manchester
Maitreyabandhu shares some of the poems from his second collection Yarn at Triratna Night at the Manchester Buddhist Centre on 12 October 2015.
Maitreyabandhu reads from The Crumb Road
Maitreyabandhu reads from his debut collection The Crumb Road at Sheffield Buddhist Centre.
Maitreyabandhu reads 'Rilke Writes to His Wife from the Salon D'Automne'
This video shows Cézanne's painting 'Madame Cézanne in Blue' (1888-90) complemented by Maitreyabandhu's reading of his poem 'Rilke Writes to His Wife from the Salon d' Automne' (Paris VI, 29 Rue Cassette, 13th October 1907) from After Cézanne.
Maitreyabandhu: Poetry and the Spiritual Life
Maitreyabandhu discusses Poetry and the Spiritual Life with Martin Collins at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre. Part of the Off the Shelf Festival 2013.
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