Powerful.  That is the word I would use to describe Wet Silence, the newest poetry collection from Sweta Srivastava Vikram.  I devoured this collection in one sitting and went back to reread several pieces and I know I will read them yet again in the future.  This collection relates the hardships of Hindu widows in India.  We don’t know the women the stories speak of but we know that their stories are shared by many other widows in India.  It is a very moving and emotional collection … very raw in the telling and one that will haunt your thoughts for days to come.

In my years of reading I have read many novels that  portrayed the lives of women in India and that was, in fact, my interest in this collection.  This collection addresses the many restrictions placed on Hindu women after the passing of their husbands.  What they wear and eat is controlled.  They are unable to love again and remarry.  Basically they are expected to mourn their husbands for the rest of their lives whether they had been treated well or not.  As a woman it saddens me to think of vibrant women, some in the peak of their lives, having to live a life like this –  being dictated to and no longer being able to enjoy the pleasures life has to offer.  Wet Silence perfectly captures the grief, sadness, and anger that these women feel and through Sweta’s voice, I too felt their sorrow.

Wet Silence is an amazing collection.  It hits you hard – in the gut with it’s raw reality.  When I read poetry I look for how it affects me emotionally and Sweta’s is one of the most powerful I’ve read in terms of evoking so many feelings in me.  It is exceptional.

Please take the time to enjoy this video of Sweta and a reading of her poetry.  I’ve never listened to an author read their own poetry and it really adds a whole other dimension to the words spoken.

And finally I’d love to share a piece of Sweta’s poetry with you…one of my favorites.  It was the very first one I read.

My husband is leaving

Widowhood is trapping me unwillingly.

I can hear a white cotton sari weaving at the shop,
demonic voices sharp as the mustard paste in fish curry
speaking in whispers around the hospital corridor,
accusing me of standing and watching
his rotting flesh and dull eyes,
not brooding like soot on windows.

My husband is leaving.

It’s his touch gentle as velvet,
his angelic tone that I’m seeking.
Bidding farewell to our dream,
my curse: I keep on living.

(“My husband is leaving,” a poem, originally appeared in Sweta Srivastava Vikram’s poetry book: Wet Silence(Modern History Press: July 1, 2015. ISBN-13: 978-1615992560))

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Highly recommended!

Source: Digital review copy provided by the publisher for an honest review. No compensation was received.

Reconnaissance is a collection of poems by Anne Higgins and a very lovely one indeed!  Her poems are about seeing the world around us and this collection evokes vivid images of the beauty and the harshness around us every day.  She writes of birds and gardens and then on the other end of the spectrum illness and death.  Her poems take us on a journey through memories of her childhood and later years and we find we are taken away on the beauty of her words.

Anne’s poetry is really about life and all the things in it.  I think that’s what really connects the reader to her poetry.  There are poems about traffic, the blind spot when you’re driving, and another where she dreams she is Agatha Christie.  Still others deal with aging, illness, and family.  These are all poems many of us can relate to and for me that’s what is most important when I read poetry.  I was able to understand what the poems were trying to relate to me and in that I was able to just relax and enjoy them all the more.

I found the title of the collection interesting and the author explains that, to her,  the word Reconnaissance means ‘to know again’.  So she says the poems are about knowing things again, of seeing them with new eyes.  I always find it fascinating to learn where a poet finds their inspiration and I think that Anne’s perfectly encompasses the scope of this wonderful collection. While I enjoyed many of the poems there were a few that really struck a chord with me and I thought it might be nice to share at least one of them…

PERDITA

If I had a daughter, I would name her Perdita.
Of course, the time when I could have a daughter is long
gone.
But that name, the lost one, calls to me tonight.
Like Anita, and Rita, and Jacquita, Lolita, Florita, it is Latin and
lovely
but it’s lost, too.
So my lost eggs, long ago shriveled up,
and lost nest, more recently, fried by radiation.
Perdita, your name wouldn’t go well with my last name,
or the names of any of the men I would have married,
but you are the lost one,
the invisible one,
the one I never would have had the patience
to toilet train, to least train like a puppy,
to train like a stubborn adolescent.
Never meant to be be a mother,
today, more than old enough to be a grandmother,
I think of long lost tempests,
and you.

Beautiful, just beautiful… Recommended for all those with a love of poetry.

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Source: Digital review copy provided by the publisher for an honest review. No compensation was received.