Subtle Echoes: Book Review
Author/Poet: Tehmeena Salam
Publishers: Fanatixx Publication
My Rating: ****
About the Author: Tehmeena Salam is the Co-Author in five anthologies which hold a World Record, published by FanatiXx Publication. She has also published her poetries in more than 15 anthologies. The beauty of the UT Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has seen this flower blossom through her days. A post kidney transplant patient and survivor of graft rejection, she is pursuing her ambition as an MBBS student in Andaman and Nicobar Islands Institute of Medical Sciences (ANIIMS).
A big thankyou to Tehmeena Salaam for giving me her book for reading and reviewing. However I assure my readers that my opinions of the work remain unbiased.
Subtle Echoes is a mixed collection of 48 pieces of poems and letters, each unique, each beautifully expressed. There are many aspects about this book that sets it apart from the books of its genre. Firstly, it's the poet's creativity of putting a poem as the back blurb which made me include the book cover along with the back for you all to read. A short poem on 'Her Fictive World' placed before the Index and 'A Letter to the Readers' welcomes you into the book, setting the right tone for a good read ahead.
The author urges the reader in the very first letter by saying, "Flip through the pages when you feel low, when you need someone to hear your hidden feelings, when you are bored, when you are happy, so that you bloom more." Indeed, after having read the book entirely, I will agree with the author here. This is a book worthy of being called a collectible, which you could revisit when you need a 'pick-me-up'!
I loved the range of poetry presented in the collection. There are sweet poems on sisterhood, and there are hard-hitting pieces like " Rape~ The Unknown Blemishes. Wise beyond her years, Tehmeena Salaam has written some well-structure letters addressing various topics out of which 'A Letter to my Teen Self' is my favorite.
Her poems have a beautiful musicality to it in its rhyming. And her choice of words are simplistic yet effective. Speaks volumes of her control and mastery over the language. One concluding line like that has stayed with me, hours after having finished reading, "But this time, I lost the strings to my guitar!" It brings home so many emotions like a sledge-hammer. This is the concluding line of 'The 2a.m proposal' which seems to be the favorite of many other readers like me.
Tehmeena's poems have made a deep connect with my heart and I'm sure one piece or the other will touch other readers too because she writes with such sensitivity and awareness. Having lost my own mother, one of her poem's had this concluding line which rings so true, that it moved me to tears!
"I could do nothing without you,
'A truth the heart knows, but tongue denies.'
the only downside of this book , in my opinion is it's cover. Such a beautiful collection deserves a much better face, an equally touching first impression!
Subtle Echoes is a Must Read for all poetry lovers, and I say this from the bottom of my heart.
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