Baby Cerberus
Natasha Ramoutar
October 1, 2024
88 PAGES | ISBN 978-1-998408-02-3
The poems in Baby Cerberus are ethereal, soul-stirring and suffused with a playful intelligence. Natasha Ramoutar’s second collection traces joy and kinship across a multitude of lives and lived experiences. Shifting deftly from classical mythology and folklore to video games to speculative futures, each poem asks us to consider how we care for one another. As we move through sentient galleries, swashbuckling adventures and the doors of Atlantis, the collection reorients us in each section with a riddle, always inviting the reader to play along, tugging on the invisible threads between us all, trying to find what tethers us together and, in turn, what keeps us here. Joyous and multilayered, this is a book that’s fast enough for the speed of information and powerful enough to stop you in your tracks.
Advance Praise
"A beautiful and insightful collection of poems prodding the familial, the cosmic, and the mythological with playful musicality, formal innovation, and refreshing curiosity. From a city’s palimpsest to riddles that 'scan / each masked grain of sand' and elegies that unpack pop culture nostalgia, Natasha Ramoutar delights and astounds at every turn. Baby Cerberus is a book to cherish, examining 'the urge / to keep something radiating and precious near.'" – Cassidy McFadzean, author of Drolleries and Crying Dress
"I echo the speaker and say, 'I don’t have any words to say thanks / All I can do is chitter and squeak.' The poetry of Baby Cerberus is a balm for those of us craving recognition and kinship. Ramoutar’s poetics cultivate joy and curiosity against the kind of despair that tries to alienate us from each other and ourselves. These poems are magnetic. They collect us in all our plural and myriad forms, letting us find each other again and again: 'our harmonies turning our bodies / dizzy.'" – T. Liem, author of Obits and Slows: Twice
Reviews
A Review of Natasha Ramoutar’s Baby Cerberus — September 25, 2024 (Beatrice Szymkowiak, Green Linden Press, 25/09/2024)
"Ramoutar’s striking and uncommon lyricism offers a new vision of eco-poetry that strives to re-kin-dle human interconnectedness with each other and with the more-than-human world. A collection to discover."
Interviews
Natasha Ramoutar's Collection, Baby Cerebus, Contains Multitudes in its Imagery and Depth of Feeling (Open Book, 09/10/2024)
"The most important thing to me when writing my poems is neither the opening or the ending – it’s where the shift occurs."
Articles
5 Books by Emerging Poets that Everyone Should Read (Natasha Ramoutar, Wolsak and Wynn blog, 24/09/2024)
Natasha shares five books by poets that everyone should read.
44 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in fall 2024 (CBC Books, 05/09/2024)
Natasha's collection is included in this roundup of Canadian poetry collections the CBC are taking note of in the second half of 2024.
EXCERPT FROM BABY CERBERUS BY NATASHA RAMOUTAR (Natasha Ramoutar, River Street Writing, 12/08/2024)
Natasha shares an excerpt from her forthcoming poetry collection.
Excerpt
Click here to read an excerpt of Baby Cerberus.
About the Author
Natasha Ramoutar is a writer of Indo-Guyanese descent from Toronto. Her debut collection of poetry, Bittersweet, published in 2020 by Mawenzi House, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She was the editor of FEEL WAYS, an anthology of Scarborough literature. She is a senior editor with Augur Magazine and serves on the editorial board at Wolsak & Wynn.
