Old Time Love Song Magic

Author: Vidyā

Translator: Andrew Schelling

Publisher: Circumference Books (2025)

Old Time Love Song Magic is two books in one. The first collects Andrew Schelling’s translations of the thirty-odd existing poems by Vidyā, who may have been the earliest woman to write poetry in Sanskrit. Vidyā’s poetry, which comes to us from around 8th century India, is love poetry, and like all good love poetry, it spans a wide spectrum of feeling, from arousal to playfulness to despair. These poems are gracefully attentive to a natural world that spans the centuries with immediacy. Schelling’s translations reject melodrama and instead draw on an intimacy with the deep past, his language leaping from the originals and landing hard and true in the present moment.

Schelling has been translating and retranslating Vidyā for decades. The second book draws on the insights and knowledge gained through that process. It contains previous translations of the poems and reflections on Vidyā’s words, references, and environment. These little essays expand the world of each poem and reveal the subtle paths translation invites us to follow, taking us deeper into the work, past rhythms, and desire itself.