Splash of Emotions

"Impetus-Rhymes Within Us" by Divya Venkateswaran and Rajani Nair is a captivating collection of poems that reflects the simplest of joys, the beauty of experiences, memories and nostalgia by offering us several poetic pieces enshrined in this anthology. As the subtitle suggests, the book co-authored by two beautiful souls is a journey inward. Breaking contacts with the outer world of intense pain and agony it transports the readers into the inner world of pristine bliss where they can hear the unheard melodies of mind and the rhymes of their pure souls. Reading these greatly melodic poems one is instantly reminded of the doyen of Romantic Age John Keats who remarks in one his famous poems 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' that heard melodies are sweet but unheard sweeter. In their mellifluous tone, the poets wax eloquent and croon that they have several subtle and sublime emotions "Muffed beneath the words A restricted speech…."

Such is the intensity of the pent-up emotions that there are no adequate lexical items to vocalise them. The following line shed a plenty of light on the fathomless profundity of feelings which are cried through alphabet unheard

"Crying alphabets unheard Words brimming on the edge"

Here, it is a matter of stupendous elation to witness the fact that both the poets have exercised the immense literary powers to the fullest which they possess due to the poetic license. Those who are the votaries of poetry understand the term poetic license fully well. It is a form of liberty the poets retain with which they mend the established norms of a language. The instances of syntactic and morphological manipulations are not rare to find in this book. The SVO structure of English Language has been bended deftly by both the poets to enhance the emotive effects of their poetic pieces.

The suppleness of the verses draws our attention to the great poets like ST Coleridge and William Wordsworth, the poetic piece 'Innocence Personified' initially appears somewhat starkly similar to Words Worth's 'The Solitary Reaper'. In 'The Solitary Reaper' we meet a lone girl who is absorbed in her own deep thought singing a melody in some unknown language. Quite in a similar fashion in the poem "Innocence Personified", we come across a bare footed little girl who is oblivious of the brutal boundaries of his berserk world. The lines "Wandering Barefoot

A frivolous girl walking up in love

In her own stride Unfamiliar with the boundaries of the cosmos" reflect over the idea that children are the personifications of innocence and unmindful of the bitter realities of this barbaric world they creat their own fairy land of umpteen joys.

It would not be erroneous to remark that poets are the weird and wild creature of God gifted with subtle and sensitive minds and it is their ultra-sensitive mind which makes them wallow in utmost grief bringing them down from the summit of enormous elation. Putting in the words of Pope "they are too soon elated, too soon dejected." Similar is the situation with the creators of this book as well.

The element of poignancy is quite palpable in this anthology too as we read the pieces like "Aching Grief" wherein the poet takes recourse to the literary device of personification and lends the sea the human attributes by comparing it with a grief stricken crying individual. Here, it is pertinent to state that all of the poems have been artistically and aesthetically embellished with several poetic devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, alliterations, enjambments and so on. While delivering a discourse on Poetic Language, David Crystal states in one of the literary conferences (where yours truly lends him an attentive ear as one of the invited co-speakers) that Language charged with emotions is poetry. Quite in agreement with the eminent linguist, the language of this book is deeply emotive which warms the cockles of every heart. Therefore "Impetus would be a delightful buffet for all the poetry buffs".