A Sky Full of Bucket Lists

230.00

Author: Shobhana Kumar
Published Date: 01/01/2021
ISBN: 978-81-948164-1-6
Paperback: Paperback
Pages: 85

Winner of the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2021-22

Recipient of the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award Honourable Mention 2021

Categories: , , ,

Description

Appa, the last time I held your hand, life ebbed away slowly shutting down organs as gently as it could and I watched teary-eyed shoulders heaving with sorrow, not once looking away from your faintly beating heart except when…

year end
the slow ticking
of the grandfather clock

Shobhana comes to haikai poetry from free verse with a startlingly fresh eye for the human condition. In this first book of haibun, her depictions of illness, abandonment, death and love: parental, platonic and romantic: are tender and moving. The tone is elevated and pure with an underlying sense of being wounded by reality. Yet, as the title evokes, Shobhana offers us hope with a gentle nudge to be more caring, more mindful of our interconnected lives. — Sonam Chhoki

A Sky Full of Bucket Lists is a haibun collection that is intense, honest and uncompromising in style and content. The poems capture the unending search for identity — be it in the street, the home or in our own internal landscape. As a testimonial to life’s struggles, the poems become a riveting tribute to the human condition, reminding us of the systole and diastole of our time here. — Geethanjali Rajan

Shobhana’s poetic language announces itself as a semiotic spectacle. It swoops down upon us like a wild beast, leaving us bewildered and redeemed at once. In this counter-discursive moment, ‘hoping against hope’ becomes potentially a powerful ally in resisting grief and gloom. That’s why Kumar’s haibun is a performative mimicry of the catastrophic inequities of our age.
Ashwani Kumar, in The Financial Express

In A Sky Full of Bucket Lists, Shobhana Kumar brings a distinctive voice to her collection of thoughtfully conceived and arranged haibun. Kumar is innovative and ambitious in how she explores her material, from the overall structure of the work to the individual stories. … Kumar divides her book as the scenes of a play. The first haibun in each chapter connects across the book with the others to create a mini-narrative. A chess board is set, pieces are moved, the game is set aside in favour of work, and ultimately the scene fades to black. The first five chapters are labeled Act 1, Scenes 1-5. The final chapter “Beyond” (about death) is Act 2, Scene 1, as if death is a lifting off point into something new. — Commentary from the Touchstone Distinguished Books Panel

Shobhana Kumar has two collections of poetry: The Voices Never Stop (2012) and *Conditions Apply (2014), from Writers Workshop, Kolkata. Her work has been anthologised in journals and books of poetry and Japanese short forms. Her poem, ‘Just Married’ was selected and translated by Gulzar in his monumental work, A Poem a Day, published by HarperCollins. She has authored six books of non-fiction covering biographies, corporate, industrial, and educational histories. Her short stories have been published or are forthcoming in a few anthologies. Kumar is Poetry Editor of Sonic Boom Journal and its imprint, Yavanika Press. She is also part of The Quarantine Train, a poetry workshop founded by Arjun Rajendran. She works in the spaces of corporate communication, branding and advertising, and education. Along with a group of friends, she runs Small Differences, an NGO working with elderly, abandoned people and the transgender community.