Silken Web’! What an entrancing title, so apt for the array of poems sprouting effortlessly from the creative landscape of the featured poets’ hearts.

The poems speak in accordance with the emotion generated by some special experience, and sensitive angles unfold— queries unasked before, empathy unfelt hitherto, surface and hover.

This collection of poetry proves right the observation made by Leigh Hunt, eminent critic of the Nineteenth Century, “Poetry includes whatsoever of painting can be made visible to the mind’s eye, and whatsoever of music can be conveyed by sound and proportion without singing or instrumentation.”

The mother-daughter relationship is taken up in a different form in the poem, ‘Lying in wait’ by the established poet, Sivakami Velliangiri, which voices the hard reality in every mother’s lives as the daughter grows apart, chalking out her own life. The pathos of old age and a listless frame of mind is also effectively portrayed in her other poem ‘Sway’.

‘Lasting memory of me’ by Ambika Ananth is profoundly moving with its easy flow and content—
‘I see her walk away/ Into her new world./ I know one thing for sure,/ She has a womb of great promise./ She will bear a daughter,/An extension of herself,/ Who will make/ A lasting memory of me...’

No parent can read this last stanza and remain untouched.

Male poets are not far behind in bringing into focus reflective thoughts and emotional resonance. Randeep Wadehra’s— ‘Rama’s woman, and mine’— is one such poem with a fine, impacting closure.

‘Perhaps I pay the price/For your excesses/When my woman /Looks me in the eye/And says/She will go to another man/Coz I say ‘Yes dad’/Too often’

Rohan Korde’s ‘Death’, Avinash Subramaniam’s ‘Out of my life, inside my head’ and the humour-tinged ‘Ideal husband’, Rumjhum’s ‘Memory’, ‘Shore’ of Vikram Deish, etc, all display depth of feeling.

‘Childhood’ by Santosh Vijaykumar brings into focus the vulnerability of childhood and the poignancy of  experience etched in the last sentence— “Did your grandfather snatch your childhood away from you?”
Speaking of childhood, the vacuum caused in the lives of children by the sudden disappearance of that important figure— father— and the bewilderment which follows is depicted effectively in the last stanza of the poem, ‘What Father left us’ by K Srilata—

‘Father left us a couple of unpaid debts/And this vacuum in my children’s lives,/Marked ‘Maternal grandfather’.
But an entirely different view is presented  in ‘Leaving’ by Manu Bharati! The emotional conflicts of one setting out in quest of his life, and the guilt-feeling at leaving perforce the old-dependant parents behind, is brought out well. Completing the circle of sensitive familial-relationships.

Another current topic— ‘Mass wedding’ is dealt with finesse in ‘Monsoon Wedding’ by Chandini Santosh—       
‘All grooms look alike/White on White/And nervous/Like caged cats/A hurried exchange of garlands /Fast!’
And these four lines—

‘My hour old groom /husband/Call him what you will/Stranger yesterday/Future today’
The poems of Christine Krishnasami are intricately woven with myriads of elusive thoughts and sensitive snatches. Her poem ‘Cranes alighting’ with its central figure of ‘mama’ makes an impact, while ‘Retirement Home’ succeeds in imparting nostalgic waves.

Payal Talreja’s poem ‘Rush’ brings out another angle of a mother— the loneliness as the boy dependant on her once upon a time grows up and grows away from her, caught in the rat-race of survival.
Adultery, one of the social problems, is also dealt with subtly in ‘Perfidy’, of Nirmala Pillai, the last para inducing deep contemplation. Many other noteworthy poems are also there; To put it in a nutshell, this collection is rich with the vicissitudes of life bringing to mind Bacon’s viewpoint— ‘Same feet of nature treading in different paths’.

THE SILKEN WEB
A collection of poetry, Edited by Karuna Sivasailam                 
Published by Unisun Publications
Pages-168,  special Indian price-Rs 125/only.