Blurb:
(From the foreword by Kris Saknussemm) As with all the poets I most admire, words are living things for Tikuli. But as you will come to discover, they are never deployed for their own sake. She uses them to tell stories. The images, scenes, characters and fragments of visionary empathy that you will find in this book are all rooted in her native India-and yet they reach out far beyond national and cultural boundaries. They do so because they have an interior cohesion of spirit. Her subjects are often the dispossessed, the lost...the abused. There are undercurrents of sorrow and anger. And yet love shines through, even when it seems to be fading away. Above all, there's a powerful sense of hope at work-a conviction in the redemptive strength of poetry.
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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, Troubadour21, The Smoking Book (Poets Wear 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(Westland). Her work has also been featured on websites related to gender issues and child sexual abuse. She blogs at
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MY REVIEW
When I picked up Tikuli's Collection of Chaos,the first thing that struck me was the ability of the poems to cast an emotional effect on the reader the way music would on a listener.Her poetry is not merely a sequence of words expressing emotions.The poems turn anecdotal at times and dramatic at other.
What her poetry really expresses is the mind’s apprehension of itself. All the ingredients of her poetry stand out individually but the real essence is their cohesiveness. Her chiseled phrases stroke the reader’s appetite and never fail to tickle his imagination. The descriptions are vivid, lifelike even as many of her poems deal with harsh realities of life .The feelings are myriad, expressions overwhelming and yet the words used very simple and effective.
As I immersed myself in the lines and turned the pages, I felt that the poet was becoming more and more aware of herself and the world around her. She has used effects and descriptions to create linguistic images . The narration at times has powerful emotions and at other times there is tranquility in her presentation.
....Her elegant frame silhouetted in the moonlight
Her intense eyes,
Brimming with grief and pain
Her gaze penetrating into the quiet abyss
The maelstrom inside her resounding
in the stillness of the night
Nothing is moving,not even the
dewdrops hanging from the leaves....
The complete absence of titles in this collection of poems confused me at first but as I began reading further, I went with the flow and the experience of not having a beginning and an end worked for me. There is an underlying pattern in each individual poem and the commemorative effect reflects the poet’s state of mind. She tells stories, short ones, in simple words. Her words flow effortlessly, her lines come across as merely spoken and then improvised on the spot to give it an aesthetic poetic form.
There are moments, luckily not many, where description of the mundane causes the collection to lose ground but immediately the poet succeeds in re engaging the reader. Far from stagnant, Tikuli’s work is over all engaging and leaves me with a lingering impression that this collection is going to meet the expectation of a reader who is used to contemporary poetic literature.
The fact that the beautifully crafted lines come across as raw and unpolished when it comes to emotions, may prove to be the collection’s strength.Collection of chaos by Tikuli makes a truly satisfying read.
