Collection of Chaos- Book Review
Book Title: The Collection of Chaos
Author: Tikuli
Foreword by Kris Saknussemm
Publisher: Leaky Boot Press
My Rating: ****
Available at:
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About the Author:Brought up in Delhi in a family of liberal educationists Tikuli is a mother of two sons. She is also a blogger and author. Some of her short stories and poems have appeared in print and in online journals and literary magazines including Le Zaparougue, MiCROW 8, Trobadour 21, The Smoking Book (Poets Wears Prada Press, US), The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, Mnemosyne Literary Journal, Women's Web. Some of her print publications include poems in Guntur National Poetry Festival Anthology and much acclaimed Chicken Soup For The Indian Romantic Soul, Melange,and kaafiyana. Her work has also been featured on websites related to gender issues and child sexual abuse.
She blogs at tikulicious.wordpress.com.
This Book Review was first published at DIFFERENT TRUTHS
We were all taught nursery rhymes at kindergarten and we grew up
learning poems by heart but how many of us really found expression for our
feelings in verse? Poetry is the voice of a soul. It cannot be adopted. It's
born, somewhere deep in the warm cockles of the heart. Poetry is a maze of
words, with routes going into and out of the heart.
I am glad I came across Tikuli's Collection of Chaos. And I am even
happier that this will be the first collection of poems that I've read in 2016.
I'm delighted with this book of verses because they are straight from the heart
and yet the fluent poems are made of words that have been intelligently woven
together. I have been reading Tikuli's poems and Haikus for almost a decade now
and her inimitable style of saying so much within a few lines, a handful of
words continues to enthrall me.
I have somehow always related the reading of poetry with the first rains
that mark the beginning of the season- petrichor! And Tikuli also uncannily
opens the collection with a beautiful simile to describe the predominant
emotion that mingles with the petrichor, by saying,
'The solitude
lingers
like
the smell of rain
slaking the parched earth.'
Tikuli's collection of poems are a deluge of emotions, each separate
piece a heavier thought than before. Her words definitely come from a lifetime
of myriad experiences and jarring observations, from changing times. From the
little understanding that I have of poetic meters and such, Tikuli has ventured
to utilise very different forms of poetry, and yet maintained her voice in it.
She has given expression to a whirlwind of emotions and yet Tikuli manages to
maintain order in the usage of correctly chosen words.
While one poem is a poignant reminder of 'The Stoning of Soraya M.- a 2008 American Persian-language drama
film; another describes
mindless Indian rituals, and there are those poems that give us a
heart-wrenching peek into the minds and lives of woebegone, torn women.
There's also a fresh whiff of romance now and then. My favourite being
this short verse that captures a memory so skillfully.
At
dawn
I
gather the scent of the night jasmine
And
with it
The
scent of you
Encased
between the white
And
the vermilion
However while I kept sailing from one poem to the next, what I found
sorely amiss was a befitting title for each piece. Or maybe that would be a
stereotypical packaging for presenting one's gift to the world. I suppose
Tikuli prefers to leave each story told between the rhyming lines, to grow on
the reader and take on a title or maybe a moral of its own, as per the reader's
personal connect with the piece?
Took me around, two days to finish reading each of the poems, couplets,
verses and haikus. And I am a slow reader. I like to roll the words on my
tongue as I read, feel their weight, wait for it to travel down and sink in.
And that's appreciating poetry for me, much like enjoying the whiff and roll of
a good wine.
If I'm not wrong, there are around 90 pieces in the book of 124 pages.
And there is a different shade of known and unknown emotions to read about.
In the foreword given by Kris Saknussemm, the poetess is aptly described as a 'student heart', for she really
seems to be curious and readily imbibing all the goings on around her.
Quoting Kris Saknussemm-
"Innocence isn’t something we begin with
and then gradually lose through the
hardships of life experience, it’s a perspective
and a state of mind
we may achieve—through perseverance, humility,
and an unquenchable
curiosity about the world."
There's one more poem from the Collection of Chaos that brought a smile
to my face. There couldn’t have been truer words.
Fantasy is reality
reality is fantasy
and in between
there is a poet
on a Ferris wheel
* This review has not been requested by the author and is a genuine book review for my blog's followers, posted at my own free will.
I have read and reviewed this book as a part of my #BrunchBookChallenge for 2016. This book also checks off as Book#3 as per my own Book Reading/Reviewing Challenge 2016
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