Book review of 52 Pips: Poetry from Time’s Deck by Rekha Bhagtani

While prose is a straightforward method of putting forth your ideas and perceptions, poetry is a challenge cherished by the adventurous. Irrespective of whether they write or read, poetry is like a challenge dealt in verse that assesses the writer’s abilities of expressing one’s emotions in with the use of poetic language, while the reader’s acumen for poems and aesthetics is put to test. 52 Pips poses as both of these, but it loses out on the mark of excellence by an inch, as far as technicalities are concerned.

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But first, I would like to share one thing about this book. 52 Pips is an anthology of poems concerning the daily realities of people in general. Honestly, it’s been quite a long while since I came across such good themes and I certainly enjoyed reading them. 52 Pips can be described as a poetic rendition of the common experiences most people can relate to, especially to emotions of happiness, sorrow, euphoria, hope, despair, and so on and so forth. Now, this set of subjective ideas has been a recurring lot of themes among most budding Indian poets in the contemporary times. However, what makes 52 Pips stand apart from the rest is its execution. I am in awe by vocabulary the writer utilises to capture the exact idea or emotion she wants to convey. This precision of expressing ideas deserves special appreciation, because it is not always easy to create the effect of rhyme and melody while complementing them with appropriate words. 52 Pips makes it look very simple by balancing ornamental words with colloquialism, and the result is indeed fascinating. Colloquialism, as in the syntax of everyday speech, is utilised in a very smart and subtle way to communicate the very ideas which the poems want to convey. It is the sheer beauty of poetry that enables its readers to experience emotions in its complete rawness while not being swayed by it entirely. Simultaneously, there are certain poems in the course of 52 Pips that will captivate you in such a manner that you will be forced to nod your head in agreement with the kind of inferences the anthology proposes till the last verse.

52 Pips has a certain beauty to it. A kind of beauty that stems from the roots of simplicity. If I were to encapsulate this in a more aesthetically appealing sentence, it would be something like this:- 52 Pips immerses its readers in an ocean of everyday experiences we all can relive in or relate to one way or another. Whether it is marriage or the never-ending list of tasks to do, 52 Pips captures modern day-to-day life with such simplicity that you will be amazed for sure. I am looking forward to the poet’s later releases, because I truly admire the candidness with which she expresses the most incomprehensible of emotions at ease.

5 Books to read if you liked reading the book review of 52 Pips: Poetry from Time’s Deck by Rekha Bhagtani

• Anne Carson by Nox
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• Life On Mars by Tracy K. Smith
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

Pick the book if

• You love reading Poetries
• You love reading Contemporary Poetries

Skip the book if

• You don’t like reading Contemporary Poetries

Age Group

15 years and above

About The Author

REKHA BHAGTANI, an M. Com (in Accounting and Finance) with her unadvocated love and penchant for law and literature, is a voracious reader and an aspiring writer. Alongside her several academic achievements, she has along the path, while being a housewife, cherished the burning desire of pursuing her dreams of writing and kindled it to the maximum of her potentiality. The splay of emotions, and the light banter of new, out-of-the-box methods of writing depicted through her poems give a refreshing new outlook to the messages conveyed through them. They shall strike a deep chord and play upon the minds of her readers for a long time. Each of her 52 renditions in this first published work of hers is poignant yet powerful.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rekha.bhagtani/

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