Description
Mother told me
girls cannot ask.
So, I never asked,
never questioned.
I believed her
until one day,
she asked me
why I was so quiet.
Illustrations by Jaya Srinivasan
In this debut collection, the poet, in a confident and inspired voice, narrates the journey of love denied and aspired, which, through a series of tiny yet life-affirming revelations, morphs into something else — an act of personal courage, an act of growing up, an act of quiet determination.
Weaving together moments of love, loss and repair, the tiny poems in this volume speak of the epic journeys taken by women’s hearts. Each new page is a well-crafted icicle: sharp, flawless and lethal in the intent it carries. For myths about love, loving and womanhood all are stripped down to the bare bones of pain. Beautifully illustrated, this volume marks the sure debut of a poet who has found her voice and will never stay silent again.
— Nandita Bose, author of Everglow
Brimming with profound meaning, these short poems are entrancingly polyphonic, dazzlingly evocative, unsettlingly raw, and appear to be inspired by real
life experiences.
— Abdullah Khan, author of Patna Blues
SHEENA LAKSHMI was born in a small town in the Southern state of Kerala and through serendipity, landed a job as a technical writer in Bangalore. Her poems and other literary work were mostly confined to the pages of her diary and Word files, until a couple of friends argued that they were worth publishing. When she’s not writing user manuals, she’s either working on her permaculture farm or learning something new around regenerative and sustainable living practices.