Abounding in Imagery
Nishat Zaidi
Abounding in Imagery by Ranjani Neriya Virgin Leaf Books, Mumbai, 2014, 99 pp., 95
December 2014, volume 38, No 12

I am the dispensable primate

the blueprint of my promise

in irreparable shreds.

I search on

to husk riddle

peel white throb

on raging nucleus,

a touch and I shall

glissade into

sun-gold smithereens.

These lines from the opening poem, titled ‘Episcope’, instantly give the reader a sense of richness of words and images that the volume under review abounds in. Poem after poem, Ranjani Neriya weaves an intricate tapestry of myriad images, metaphors and vivid visual verse pictures in a tirelessly flowing stream of sonorous sounds and fecund expressions. In the process, like any other craftsman, she chisels idioms and phrases that continue to resonate in one’s mind long after one has put down the book. Sample this: ‘at the pool of allophones, float/a petal-sloop with a two-leaved sail/and watch a real toad hop away.’ (p. 92). Similarly, the use of evocative metaphors in the poem titled ‘Mother Teresa,’ is worth quoting: ‘of uncommon mould/her fingers weave/soft looms of light,/in maimed corridors/dungeons of pain’ (p. 41).

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