Book Story

Ah yes, Undecember: The Thirteenth Month.

Imagine, if you will, a month that doesn’t exist. A month stitched together from the stolen seconds of stormless afternoons and the breathless hush after heartbreak. A month that levitates—yes, levitates—just out of reach of the Gregorian calendar. That’s where Amit Shankar Saha lives. That’s where he writes.

This isn’t poetry. This is a silk scarf caught in a Himalayan breeze. It’s a denture that speaks of lost youth and unspoken love. It’s a side-bag with a broken zipper, embroidered with seabirds and regret. It’s a telescope that brings the moon closer but leaves the beloved just as far away.

Each poem is a relic from a life not quite lived, or perhaps lived too deeply. There are trains that stretch time, teeth that mourn their absence, and lovers who communicate through sleet and syntax errors. There are rhododendrons blooming in the mind, and a grove where trees whisper their longing to elope.

This is not a book. It’s a thirteenth month. A red-letter month. A month that doesn’t ask permission to exist.

You don’t read Undecember. You remember it.

From the Author’s Description

A solar year consists of twelve months. But if a lunar year has to correspond to a solar year, then an extra month is required. This leap month is ‘Undecember’.
[…] This book represents a month of thirty days, divided into two sections: Sukla Paksha and Krishna Paksha – the Hindu demarcations for the waxing and waning phases of the moon – each comprising fifteen poems for the fifteen days of each phase.

These thirty poems convey the same ethos and sensibility of the previous book – being intensely personal and yet aesthetically accessible. The poems continue their play on Sringara Rasa of love and beauty mediated by the sense of viraha.

A Review

Amit Shankar Saha is the Koh-i-Noor of poets, a priceless Indian diamond that shines most brilliantly among English [writers]. Who else could transform a missing tooth into a multifaceted meditation on mortality and identity? Or invoke the many-named splendors of his native land, and also invoke a cherished love life, via an imaginary tour through his own “country of rhododendrons,” all in less than twenty short lines? Nearly every poem in this book is a treasure! I highly recommend it.

– Duane Vorhees, author of Heaven and Between Holocausts

How Do I Buy the Book?

Amit Shankar Saha’s Undecember is available worldwide online and in your favorite bookstore around the corner. You can also order directly from us (use the links below), depending on which entity you want to support more: author, bookstore, or publisher.

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Product Details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Musca Press
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 25, 2025
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 78 pages
ISBN ‏ : ‎ 978-1683151272 (hardcover)
ISBN ‏ : ‎ 978-1683151265 (paperback)
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.18 x 9 inches