Tag Archives: Poetry

Memory is the well from which poets draw inspiration, but poetry is the ‘zazen’ that brings acceptance for loss. Thus in ‘Recognition’ the poet poignantly recalls:
The taste of twin Genoise sponge
baked and partly burnt
for my fourth birthday bash…
…the agency of

Comprising as does Subramaniam’s anthology of the voices of 56 women saints, the question then is whether they all speak in like manner, like a chorus of women saints? Rather, breaking all expectations of homogeneity that labels tend to entail, Arundhati’s compilation showcases the diversity inherent under the label ‘saint’ thereby prodding the reader gently to not experience life through accustomed wisdom but rather live for herself as a seeker after her own truth making herself the architect of her own path, with her own body, and in this material world.

Several challenge ideas that love is but a current coin for transgressivewomen or that learning and fine aesthetic sensibility are domains in which only the well-to-do are proficient. Many poems, particularly those by transgressive women affirm the significance of looking beautiful, the relevance of accoutrements, cosmetics, graceful mannerisms and many while asserting the importance of their composers’ selfhoods are also confessional without a trace of embarrassment or shame.

Between her musings and observations, Lakshmi Kannan has a finely attuned sense of the subtle changes in Indian society: the joys, the dangers, the desires, the loss of control; her poems serve to remind us of poetry’s role in recovery, healing and moving on. These poems tell stories of resilience and endurance and in doing so showcase a sutradhar, a storyteller for our times.

Hauser also provides fascinating accounts of the various remedial methods adopted by people across centuries: from devout prayers to throwing out of earthenware, inhalation of aromatics to wearing beak-shaped masks and more.

A head-on collision with injustice, oppression, inequity, discrimination, etc., do not a good poem make. The language may be rousing, the rhythm may be seducing, yet, in the ultimate analysis, whereas the poem may delineate an injustice of history, it may not be an imaginative tour de force like Sylvia Plath’s ‘Daddy’ or Mona Zote’s ‘What Poetry means to Ernestina in Peril’.

This verse reflects on the endless passage of time and the gradual wearing away of moments. In solitude, a chance encounter symbolizes a sudden, unexpected connection or escape from the ordinary. Amidst the turmoil, love remains patient and hopeful, waiting to embrace the boundless, timeless essence of the beloved.

His deceptively simple imageries stand as some of the finest specimens of poetry affirming his enduring legacy in a rapidly changing art world.

If the book has a flaw, it is the almost anticlimactic dénouement, where everything falls into place tamely and Twain sails away without making any major waves or being touched by this fascinating palimpsest of a city teeming with stories.

In moments of solitary quietness, Chowdhury strikes intimate relations with insects and other non-human beings. Interestingly, a slow-moving caterpillar, or a dancing butterfly enhances his craving for self-consuming privacy all the more.

The tragedy of the glorious Achilles who is a pawn of history, an Icarus whose fatal flight is immortalized in a Renaissance painting by Brueghel, and the boy David battling the giant Goliath are all taken out of their textual, monumental existence into a visceral world of imagination and reified there. Further, different civilizational ethos coalesces in a beautiful description of Buddha’s

The retelling of myth serves as an effective device for simultaneously critiquing the present and locating its continuities with the past, to indicate how orthodoxies and systems of exclusion replicate themselves through the ages, across changing contexts.

The poetry book opens with six provocative haikus. They are tight, precise and fecund with suggestions. Although the essence of a haiku lies in the neat execution of its syllabic structure and restrained release of its deep meaning, each haiku in the book is paradoxically supplemented by a corresponding colorful sketch. At times, the precision of a haiku is invaded by the visual excess of the sketch and the pleasure of delaying interpretation of the form is suddenly interrupted by the diverted attention.

In the realm of contemporary English poetry, a discernible renaissance is unfolding, evident in the diverse voices and thematic textures woven into the fabric of six noteworthy collections published in 2023. As we traverse these poetic landscapes

While most bardic poetry, K Kailasapathy’s preferred adage over court poetry, had its origins in traditions of oral storytelling, the corpus of Tamil Heroic Poetry, most of which is garnered from the extant works of the Sangam Age (the modern-day term for this body of literature)

Firefly Memories contains poems written since 2010. It would be remiss of us to look at current Indian Poetry in English without paying attention to the publishing facilities that put out a book in print.

A distinct symbolism underlines Radha Chakravarty’s debut collection of poems Subliminal.
The title hints at a presence which though unseen is palpable.

The book seeks to juxtapose individual feelings of desolation and deprivation with universalizing aesthetics in an idiom shaped by a blizzard of words.

The ingredients of poetic sensibility compel a writer to see a little more than others can see and dig a little deeper than usual sense-perception may allow. Leeladhar Jagudi’s work and wisdom highlights this tender balance between living and writing. In this anthology of interviews Prashnavyuh Mein Pragnya, Jaguri talks of poems, poets and the translation of an observation into a creative composition.

As a monk, tired of seeking the divine elsewhere, looks within and finds his way back, Sengupta follows a trail of breadcrumbs strewn in his path to move back to his cloister. If we see through the black humour in these poems, we will know the poet is weary in his critical gaze and all he needs is rest. But resting is possible only in the midst of nature, or specifically, in the tenderness of Bengal’s mud and grass.