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Amrita Sharma
‘Trips and Trials – A Selection of Poems and Songs
Amrita Sharma

Trips and Trials: A Selection of Poems and Songs | Jayshree Misra Tripathi |
Pepper Script, 2018| ISBN: 978-93-84411-52-7| pp 116 | 290

An emotionally vibrant journey

With poetic circles continuing to offer new flavours of poetic appetite each new day, Jayshree Misra Tripathi’s recently launched verse collection titled Trips and Trials- A selection of Poems and Songs remains yet another addition to this year’s poetic diversity. Dedicated to her late career diplomat husband Sibabrata Tripathi, the book offers a collection of forty two poems divided into seven sections that present an emotionally vibrant journey across the varying paradigms of the ‘lived’ human experiences.

Drawing upon the overshadowing theme of ‘Love Conquers All,’ this collection clearly indicates the poet’s strongly reverberating endeavours to convey the intensity of her ‘poetic self’ that remains deeply interwoven within her diction and forms. Dividing the entire collection into six subsections of seven poems each, the poet designates the six ‘Ls’ as the defining sub-themes of her poetic narrations, namely ‘Love,’ ‘Loveless,’ ‘Lament,’ Lust,’ ‘Loss,’ and ‘Life.’ Thus sketching her poetic canvas around these broad abstractions, the poet presents forth a vivid range of reading experiences that take the reader back and forth along her unevenly carved poetic landscape.

With a visibly strong affinity for both the ‘concrete’ and the ‘abstract’, the poems compiled together attempt a seemingly tactful balancing of these two extremes, as the poet herself notes in her ‘Preface’ to the collection: “My words are not terse, taut – as emotions are held in check, yet overflow. Harsh realities are not accepted easily. Concrete images are blurred by shadowy tears.” And what adds to the vividness of the reading experience are the complementing sketches by the Delhi based visual artist, Moonis Ijlal , that commence each of the six sections and offer an equally stimulating appetite for the visual senses. Thus presenting an equally creative association of both the pen and the brush, the book, from its cover design to the title and content, offers an impressive packaging that appeals and attracts attention and interest.

With the thematic canvas ranging from the ‘personal’ to the ‘universal’, the collection touches upon the fancies of joy, sorrow, pain, nostalgia and hope that appear to be surfacing along the poetic grounds as one travels along the pages. From “Lost Sunsets” to “The Decay of Munificence”, and from “Hope for Love” to “The Collector of Grief”, the poems collectively offer a rich reading experience that is further eased by simplicity of words and their natural occurring rhyme.

Also standing out as a poetic product of a female psyche receiving vivid experiences of life across different national borders as well as undergoing a first-hand experience of the different phases of womanhood, the poems encapsulate a uniquely feminine tone that finds expression from the very first poem of the collection to the last one, but in varying degrees. An example of a feminist tone may be found in the poem titled “She” that opens as follows:

SHE with the sorrowful eyes…
In the mist of shadows at dusk, alone
From morn till eventide
Tears somehow blur her vision
Inside this space she calls home.

However not confining her verses to the encapsulation of the womanly pathos, the poet rather presents a hopeful conclusion, as in this particular poem, she concludes: “SHE with the sorrowful eyes now smiles- / It lights up her face / HER true colours will ever shine on…” Thus what emerges as a collective whole is a realistic and socially aware representation that remains strongly firm in tone and expression.

The poems compiled in this collection thus seem to appear out of a dynamic poetic persona whose presence seems to dominate the perceptions that project out of the songs and the poems. What also leaves an imprint upon a close reading of the verses is the deep integration of the social ethos within the psychological nuances that govern and dictate the construction of many verses put forth for the reader in this collection. Ranging from childhood to death, despair to hope, and love to loveless, the poet touches upon diverse aspects of everyday experiences that remain connected through their inevitably ‘human’ linkages. However what may prove disengaging at times is the over-simplistic narrativity that at times appears redundant due to lack of novelty.

Overall written in a lucid, clear, simplistic and engaging style, this poetry collection stands out for its captivating sense of strong emotional ties that remain very contemporary in their poetic flavour and demeanour. Offering both a comforting or even at times disturbing encounter with words, the book remains a recommended collection for all those intending to undertake some new poetic ‘trips’ and ‘trials’ that stir your soul and entangle your mind.

♣♣♣END♣♣♣

Issue 88 (Nov-Dec 2019)

Book Reviews
  • A Annapurna Sharma: ‘Delhi Heritage – Top 10 Baolis’
  • Aju Aravind: ‘Breaking Paths – Stories of Women Who Dared’
  • Akila G: ‘Sin of Semantics’
  • Amrita Sharma: ‘Trips and Trials – A Selection of Poems and Songs
  • Atreya Sarma U: ‘The Parrot Green Sari’
  • GSP Rao: ‘Picturesque India
  • GSP Rao: ‘Adi Shankaracharya – Hinduism’s Greatest Thinker’
  • JS Broca: ‘A GIFT OF GRACE –The Essence of Guru Nanak’s Spirituality’
  • Sapna Dogra: ‘Of Closures & New Beginnings’
  • Sumallya Mukhopadhyay: ‘The Ungrateful Refugee’