He Said she Said - Book Review

With new novelists and publishers sprawling, the Indian literary scene looks quite promising. However, unfortunately the same can not be said about poetry. Poetry has some how remained esoteric form of literature. Hence “He said She said” a collection of poems by Angad Singh Saluja and Priyanka Bharadwaj should be welcomed.

 The cover of the book is very attractive and will compel even a person not interested in poetry to pickup the book.

The collection has 25 poems by Angad and 25 poems by Priyanka. The poems cover variety of subjects. So apart from hackneyed topics like love, longing, death and betrayal, we have poems on fresh topics like human trafficking, old age and even being orphan.

When two poets are publishing their work together, comparison is inevitable. Priyanka's poems are incisive and poignant, whereas most of Angad's poems appear abstract. His voice is muffled by Her hard hitting words drenched in emotions. May be that is a difference between Him and Her.

As I told the beautiful cover will make you open the book. However, I was disappointed with the incorrect usage of language in the first poem itself. In my opinion the line in the poem Why I Write - “Leaving trail on other's live” is grammatically wrong. It can not be covered up by any poetic license. This was Angad's poem. In his another poem Drowned also the line “Your colored changed” also exhibits grammatical mistake. Fortunately there are no such faults in Priyanka's poetry.

The introduction by the poets say that the collection is published to give long due respect to poetry. The poets and publishers must be congratulated for their efforts to achieve this noble objective. Hope this collection throws open the gates for many new poems with fresh voices.