text: birthday poetry - soy fevered
  Verses from difficult times: The English translation of Perumal Murugan's poems is out
  when the poems were composed, Murugan had announced his "death" as a writer. "I don't know whether I had the ability to stem the flow of my thoughts and exert control over them. But I know I never felt a desire to rein them in," he says.
  From a novel about deserting US soldiers in Iraq to essays on why to read poetry, these are titles that should sit on your shelf, writes Jane Ciabattari.