Reflections of a young poet

REFRESHING IMAGERY, spontaneity of expression, unexpected maturity of thought in many poems are prominent features of this first collection of verse. Silence, loneliness, death, darkness - infatuations of the emotionally over-powered, sensitive, thinking young appear as the underlying echoes in seemingly straightforward outbursts. What also impresses one is the general absence of mundane, sulking sentimentality which would otherwise mark the works of someone so young and vulnerable. His observations are taut. A certain vibrant energy, a certain restlessness characterises most poems.

On the negative side, Feroze Varun Gandhi suffers from the common need to conclude many of his poems with a reckless statement. Often in variance or in complete contrast with the apparent mood or tenor of rest of the poem. And his statement is not necessarily in the concluding line but even in the middle of a perfectly harmonious expression of an outburst. There is also the tendency to over-emphasise words in certain poems. This not only appears unnecessary but also at times succeeds only in achieving the opposite.

Several of these are more mood and moment reflections than poems of any literary merit. Some tend to be mere pontifications on life, and meanderings about nothingness, eventually. These could have been set aside as juvenilia unbound and done away with. "Stacked," for instance. The deliberate or otherwise abandoning of punctuations jar the reading, also resulting in the fruitless interpolation of thought, particularly where the expression is lacking in a thematic wholeness. This is also, perhaps, due to the latent inexperience in managing emotional outbursts, which then destroy the original thought.

Those that come through effectively include "Death" ("Die I must/ But not alone/ For the moon will/ steal me into her marble eyes/ and through her umbilical cord/ I will learn things they made me forget"); "Scent" ("God is further than torture/ younger than truth/ unreachable in this quiet time of death"). Notice again the death metaphor, so imminent and common in the poetry of the young anywhere, in any language. And the short poem, "Alone" amongst others:

Sometimes I with I 
lived alone
and no one came by
It would be nice
to breathe alone
All thoughts in 
solitude
and then it seems like being 
alone 

is like being in a crowd
my thoughts trapped in 
confusion
Like a kite caught in the sky
Imagine being caught in the 
sky...

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