Life, Living & Livelihood: Short Poems on Life by Santosh Nair | Book Review

I’ve always been entranced with words and the way they come together to make rhythmic sense. When I wasn’t reading them, I was bringing them together, even as a child. My writing journey started when I was around 10 or 11, when I decided to start writing poems. I didn’t know Frost or Dickinson or Gill at the time. All I knew about poetry was that the lines had to rhyme. So it began, with me maintaining notebook upon notebook of these poems. And then came a time when I stopped. Maybe because I grew up.

Santosh Nair’s poetry collection, Life, Living & Livelihood: Short Poems on Life, took me right back to that time, to that corner, to the pages of that notebook.

Tamarind: Sweet and Sour Poems on Love, Loss, Longing, and Life by Akhila Mohan CG | Book Review

When I was about 10 years old, I decided to try my hand at writing poetry. What did a poem need to be anyway? Alternate, consecutive, or all lines that rhymed? I could write anything about anything, then. At least that’s what I thought. But as I grew up, I discovered more and more about the power that poetry holds. It’s not just rhyming words. It brings out a person’s emotions in ways that we never thought it could. I grew, I understood, I learnt that in limited words and short verses, poetry can tell a person’s history, a person’s feelings, their pain, their hopes and dreams, their deepest, darkest secrets, as well as everything they live for.

The Girl and the Goddess by Nikita Gill | Book Gush

There are certain books that will make you bawl because they are so similar to your life and your experiences that it hurts. These books will leave a gaping hole in your chest, days after you finish reading them. Being able to identify with what the author is saying makes you antsy and uncomfortable, but it will make you want to give the author a big hug for understanding you. Because it seems like no one in your life so far has ever understood the chaos, the unease, the dissatisfaction within your chest.
But Nikita Gill does. She’s got that kindred spirit thing going with me and she doesn’t even know I exist!

Let Me Have This Moment…

When I’m distraught When I’m trying to pour my heart out Into your waiting ears Listen Give me a few words of comfort Hug me Give me a smile A smile of reassurance That everything will be alright Even if I believe otherwise Override my senses Override my belief in the brimming negativity Tell meContinue reading “Let Me Have This Moment…”

War Poems by Christopher Pascale | Book Review

The style of writing is simple, almost like a narration, but there is music in this style of poetry. It’s the simplicity that hits you with the force of a battering ram. There isn’t any explanation as to why you feel the load crushing your chest as you read the poems, aside from the fact that they are as beautifully realistic as a poem could possibly be.