Come April and our literary delight skyrockets. The Global Poetry Writing Month has kickstarted and our social media feeds are already flooding with daily creative prompts and poems. Writing poems allows one to reflect on the world around them, to resist and defy, to render their musings on the most quotidian things in the most creative fashion. But any exercise in writing is inexorably linked with reading. Reading poetry is an exercise in pleasure but also in intellectual churning and emotional resonance, it can be visceral and distancing simultaneously, it can foment our own individual little revolutions and move masses. Hence, we bring to you a list of must read books of poetry by Indian poets which have either been published in the current year or will grace our shelves soon.
The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Poets
Compiled and edited by the celebrated Indian poet and author, Jeet Thayil, The Penguin Book of Indian Poets brings together the works of canonical as well as contemporary Indian poets. The ultimate anthology of poems for our times, this monumental book is not to be missed. In addition to some of the finest poems ever written, it would also constitute literary essays and classic black and white portraits, which add both a sense of history of the evolution of Indian literature grounded in changing cultural contexts and a touch of personal connection with the poets.
Knotted Grief by Naveen Kishore
In the last two years, we have suffered collective grief. We have mourned our personal losses and witnessed horrific tragedies with muted rage and immense sorrow. Naveen Kishore’s Knotted Grief, then, is an important read since having the heart to acknowledge our losses and being able to grieve is also to heal, to find catharsis. A mosaic of large scale public brutalities placed alongside the individual capacity of humans to hurt, this book questions the very nature of grief.
Lustre of a Burning Corpse by Anureet Watta
Anureet Watta is a poet and filmmaker based in Delhi who recently released a short film called Kinaara which poetically narrates the story of a woman in love with another woman during the tumultuous times of partition. Lustre of a Burning Corpse is Anureet’s debut book of poems, at the center of which they place gender and puts it in conversation with the questions of violence, identity, memory and power. The poems bring queer narratives to the forefront with an unmatched lyricality, rage and hope.
A Full Circle by Namrita Bachchan
Doesn’t it happen so often that we long to curl back to our childhood selves, to relive those carefree days when the smallest of things held unparalleled wonder in our eyes? The memories of childhood are always imbued with the colours of awe and excitement. In A Full Circle, author and artist Namrita Bachchan allows us to have a freefall into those memories while we see the world through the eyes of her five-year-old daughter as she discovers the joys of reading. Every now and then, when the world seems too bleak, it is books like these which feel like a warm hug and give us solace.
Chinar: A Collection of Poems by Heemal Handoo Bhat
We think of Chinars, a breathtaking landscape of tall trees with red and golden leaves appears in front of our eyes. But this book of poetry goes far and beyond the concerns of beauty and engages us with questions of the fragility of the human condition, as it finds a footing in the genre of nature poetry. It puts into words the nostalgia of home and in the same breath questions what home might mean. Could it be the river which still hails one in the language of silences or the flowers which remain as crisp and fresh in our memory as one witnessed their first bloom through the enchanted eyes of a child.
Text Saumya Singh
Date 05-04-2022