Borobudur and Other Poems

At the time of the construction of the Borobudur in the ninth century, Buddhism had been established in Java for several centuries. Jennifer Mackenzie’s Borobodur, an exquisite long poem, tells the story of its legendary architect, Gunavarman, and of Indonesia’s mystical monument with cultural understanding, sensitivity, and great feeling. Like Gunavarman by the poem’s end, Mackenzie becomes a “dot on the horizon” leaving us stilled in silence.