Description

Sutputra Radheye’s poems are unpunctuated. Unpunctuated too in their expressions of truth, often through self-confession and satire. So acute is his knowledge of luminaries of literature, music and events that he can address these with an audacious playfulness that is never off-key. Weighty subjects like love and death or contemporary issues such as caste, gender or consumerism are viewed through an original lens, laying the subjects bare. He writes: ‘my poems will be drunk, truthful/and blunt like your beauty that cuts/through my skin and draws graffiti/on my bones like tattoos.’ Yet the poems have flashes of hope, joy, appreciation and a quest for freedom. For in his own words: ‘when will we learn/to not cage things/that are born to be free?’ — Neera Kashyap

A collection of poems that engages with both the monumental and the minute, the accessible and the elusive, the traditional and the emerging. The poet’s voice expands the possibilities of poetry, while maintaining the observational clarity throughout the collection. — Kabir Deb

Sutputra Radheye’s poems originate from the lived experiences, which adds a freshness in diction and style. The poet is candid and often ruthlessly honest. The poems bring out miseries of poverty, hypocrisies of society, gender issues as well as spirituality, making the readers step out of their comfort zones. The poems also speak of hope and strength, hope that one derives after losing everything. This book will be a significant addition to the oeuvre of Indian poetry in English.  — Nabanita Sengupta

Sutputra Radheye is a poet currently based in India whose works have been published in many different national and international journals, blogs and anthologies. As a poet, he chooses to explore new themes and often experiments with styles, metaphors and arrangements. When he is not writing poems, he is engaged in fieldwork in some corner of India, binge-watching a series or just taking a walk around the neighbourhood. Through this collection, he welcomes you to be a part of his messy world.

          FROM THE BOOK

home

when i am in guwahati
people look at me
like i am an outsider
a bangal waiting to snatch
their jobs and land
and when in kolkata
they laugh at my accent
as if i am not bengali enough
to be one of them
like i am an alien in a familiar body

shakespeare

why do you write poems
for a male friend
who might have been more
than a friend, shakespeare?
are you not afraid of the
churches and courts?
what makes you love the lady
and the lord equally?
how can you fall for both
romeo and juliet, othello
and desdemona? is it even
legal to do so? what about
the 377 of your time?

poem

people read poems
to feel alive
to let a sapling grow
in the barren land

i write poems
to taste death
plucking the sapling out
to put it on paper