Poetry Reads: Lust Poems by Snehith Kumbla

Over the years, as life has unfolded, a string of poems on the sexual experience got themselves written, like honey trickling in to a honeycomb. A selection of these poems have made it to 'Lust Poems' - published a day after my first poetry collection - Fragrance and other poems was released. 

Indians and sex: Status quo  

Little, no, nothing...nothing is taught or talked about in India - Be it of sexuality, sex, lust, sexual attraction, puberty and the overwhelming changes it brings. No school or college endorses sex education. I do not know of any Indian parent of having talked about 'the birds and the bees' to their kids.

Yet, we are in the age of freely available porn, soft porn, lewd apps and channels promoting vulgar content. None of it holds a realistic mirror to the nature of sex and its complexities - Far from it. In fact, the content promotes misleading and fantasy-laden elements that can divert immature minds.

The only thing that is prominently mentioned is contraception and thanks to condom companies, at least the messaging is well-intended and celebratory. The stigma of asking for a condom at a chemist is largely gone - in India's metro cities at least.    

The Kama Sutra, an often misunderstood work on sexuality, erotic desire and emotional happiness in life, was collected in its present form in the second century. 

From then to now, from sexual awareness, discussions on a pleasurable life, to blackening faces and humiliating couples on Valentine's Day, the collective Indian sexual consciousness has touched new lows. 

That said, there is much radiance and hope in how Generation Z aka Gen Z (born between 1995 and 2009) perceives sex and sexual relations. But that is for another blog post. We deviate here, back to the book. 

An image from the book 

In this age of repression and general inhibition, I present to you 'Lust Poems,' a dozen poems in celebration of bodily pleasures, an ode to breasts, nod to quickies, the sparks of winter lovemaking, of intense first attraction and much more.  

Lust Poems is available on Amazon Kindle and on paperback across the globe on the Amazon website and Amazon Kindle, except in India. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Apparently, in the world's most populated country, sex is too taboo to be featured on a top ecommerce website.  

Lust Poems by Snehith Kumbla

The Amazon Kindle US link: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9V85TN9

The Amazon Kindle UK link: 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C9V85TN9

The Amazon Kindle Australia link: 

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0C9V85TN9

The Amazon Kindle Canada link: 

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0C9V85TN9

An image from the book

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Poetry Reads: Poems on the Underground

Underground Railway Trial Trip, 1863 

The London Underground aka the Tube, as they call the metro or the subway, is the world's first underground railway. That said, when the Metropolitan line was started in 1863, it wasn't exactly running underground. A trench was dug a few feet below the ground, tracks laid, roofs laid, and voila! Underground, they declared!

It was in 1890, the first real underground route, the Northern Line, was opened to the public. What revolutionary tunneling machine led to this is another story.

That introduction aside, let's cut to year 1986. 

Persuasion, three friends and an experiment

Once upon a time in 1986, three friends gently ganged up to make an offer...anybody could refuse.

The three non-Mafia members, Judith Chernaik (writer 1), Cicely Herbert (poet 1) and Gerard Benson (poet 2) proposed an experiment. 

They prodded (not literally, but in a manner of speaking) the concerned London Underground personnel, in what is alleged to be, a non-threatening manner, to conduct an experiment. 

Lets put up some poems on them trains and see what happens, the trio murmured. The powers that be agreed.  

Thus began Poems on the Underground. Print editions of the featured poems followed. Free leaflets of the poems were distributed at stations. 

To this day, three times a year, a renewed set of poems, old, new, ancient, popular, obscure adorn the Underground trains. 

The Poems on the Underground blokes do recognize the support of The British Council, Transport for London (TfL) and Arts Council England. But they neither confirm nor deny that the Corleone family is in any way involved. 

Poems on the Underground: Highlights 

One of the funniest verse I read in a Poems on the Underground anthology is the mischevious, cheeky Edwin Morgan poem The Subway Piranhas. 

It so happened in the early eighties that Morgan was among the four poets commissioned to write poster poems. This was to mark the reopening of the Glasgow Subway - Argubly the world's third-oldest underground system. 

The Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive (SPTE) rejected four of Morgan's poems. SPTE, as Morgan said in response, took the poems literally. SPTE, as was reported, wanted to assure their passengers that (as far as they know) no piranhas infested the Underground.  

The Subway Piranhas later made it to the Underground display, and later to one of the Poems of the Underground anthologies. 

The Subway Piranhas by Edwin Morgan 

My utmost favourite is this wonderful Grace Nichols turn on homesickness, featured as the first poem in a Poems on the Underground anthology. 

Like a Beacon by Grace Nichols

Poetry and us

The transformative power of poetry is the essence of the Poems on the Underground initiative – a celebration of the human spirit, ode to shared experiences, that even in the depths of a bustling metropolis, art finds its way to the soul.

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Poetry Reads: I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail by Anonymous

Mystified. At first read, this 12-line, 400-odd years old poem had my adolescent mind perplexed. 

Bermuda traingles and UFO sightings seemed less mysterious to the unending fog I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail was wrapped in. 

This blog post is thus, to emphatically declare, that discovering the simple, fun deception of I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail was one of the few riddles that I could unravel, prior to the first hideous appearance of facial hair, and before shaving cream companies across the planet rejoiced in ensnaring yet another customer for life. 

As for solving the enigma of women, nonlinear Christopher Nolan movies and related jigsaw life puzzles, well...that's a work in progress. 

Now, dear endangered community of dedicated poetry readers, for your consideration, the timeless poem. 

‘I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail’

by Anon

I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail

I saw a blazing comet drop down hail

I saw a Cloud with Ivy circled round

I saw a sturdy Oak creep on the ground

I saw a Pismire swallow up a whale

I saw a raging Sea brim full of Ale

I saw a Venice Glass sixteen foot deep

I saw a Well full of men`s tears that weep

I saw their eyes all in a flame of fire

I saw a House as big as the Moon and higher

I saw the sun even in the midst of night

I saw the Man that saw this wonderous sight.

Decoding 'I saw a Peacock' 

The simple deception in the lines - fiery tail is a lovely imagery for a peacock's tail and a passing comet.

If the third line is rearranged with the second line for clarity, it would read - I saw a cloud drop down hail. 

Does a comet drops down hail too? A tail of dust and gas, yes, but hail? This is where the nonsensical part comes in. 

Instead of dissecting this word after word, let's do an exercise in rearrangement: 

I saw a blazing comet with a fiery tail

I saw a cloud drop down hail

I saw a sturdy Oak with Ivy circled round

I saw a Pismire creep on the ground

I saw a raging Sea swallow up a whale

I saw a Venice Glass brim full of Ale

I saw a Well sixteen foot deep

I saw their eyes full of men`s tears that weep

I saw a House all in a flame of fire

I saw the sun as big as the Moon and higher

I saw the Man even in the midst of night

Thus unravels the mystery, but still evocative and fun to read. Everything makes sense, but for the last line. 

Alternatively, one can read each line from the middle to the next line's middle, and lo and behold, the mystery is revealed. 

The poem is at once a riddle, a trick verse, brimming with comic nonsense vibes. 

The use of pismire for an ant dates back to the 14th century. Hold your noses for the origin story - Pismire is from 'pyss' (urine) and mire (an ant). 'Pyss' refers to the pungent smell of an anthill.

Venice glass - Reference to venetian glass, glassware variety made in Venice (specifically Murano Island) since the 13th century. 

The rest, I would like to believe, is self-explanatory. 

An illustrated book interpretation by Gond tribal artist Ramsingh Urveti (Tara Books) 

But, then again...

For sheer joy it evokes in splendid, absurd and magnificent imagery, line after line, the poem is best experienced without untangling its mad, bizzare arrangement. 

History, trivia:'I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail'

It's ironical that trivia means information that is of little value or importance. Maybe I should call what is to follow non-trivia, and run with it.

The first known published version of the poem, appeared around 1665 in a commonplace* book, claims The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.

The poem's earliest known anthology appearance is alleged to be a two-part collection called Westminster Drolleries (1671, 1672). Subtitled - Being a choice collection of song and poems sung at court and theatres, this rare collection is still available on online stores.

Drollery means a comic drawing or picture. In the poem's context, it may match another definition - An oddly amusing story or joke, something funny or whimsically amusing.   

The poem found contemporary fame in legendary illustrator of Roald Dahl fame - Quentin Blake's The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse (1994). 

Writers on 'I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail'

Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood chose 'I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail' for the Scribner Poetry compilation - 'First Loves: Poets introduce the essential poems that captivated and inspired them' (2000).

As Atwood reveals in the book - ...and this is the first poem I can remember that opened up the possibilities of poetry for me—what it could do, how it could mean several things at once, how the familiar and the strange depended upon each other. How words could alter the landscape. 

English writer Virginia Woolf didn't speak directly of the poem, but generally stated in the essay, A Room of One’s Own (1929),"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."

Endnote: 'I saw a Peacock with a fiery tail'

It's hard to tell whether a man or woman wrote 'I saw a peacock with a fiery tail.' 

All that can be stated with certainity - Reading this trick verse-nonsensical-comic-riddle poem is bloody good fun. 

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

*Commonplace books are used to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: sententiae (often with the compiler's responses), notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. (Wikipedia)

Poetry Reads: Fragrance and other poems by Snehith Kumbla

The second edition front cover

This is convey, with much joy, that I have published a selection of my poems on Amazon Kindle and paperback. The Kindle edition is available across the world on the Amazon website and the Kindle app. The paperback edition is not yet available in India, at the time of writing.

The India Kindle edition is priced INR 100.  

Fragrance and other poems by Snehith Kumbla: Select purchase links: 

The Amazon (India) link: https://lnkd.in/dMPy_UH3

The Amazon (US) link: https://lnkd.in/dZdYaMU2

The Amazon (UK) link: https://lnkd.in/dP9iNjeT

Fourteen poems, one volume

Of the 14 poems featured here, the first six are inevitably about love. 

Fragrance is of absence and fondness.

Her Yellow Dress is on the overpowering allure of beauty.

Body Ink, Siren and Craving are odes to desire and attraction. 

Auria is of dreamy, snuggle-meshed lovemaking.

A nod to nature in Still, renewed beginnings in New Day, celebrating hugs and winter in Warmth, the doom of heartbreak in Fall.

Ordinariness is of jobs and dead routine.

Bhang Diary celebrates the riotous, wild times of holi, the festival of colours, and the intake of the delicious, mischief-dripping beverage - bhang.

Listen, Rain is an ode to the many beautiful thunderous rain-rich evenings.

Dive is a call to the self - That everything is waiting at the other end of fear.

An image from the Kindle/Paperback edition

On poetry 

I do not recall the first line of poetry I wrote. 

I do recollect the first poem that was published in a children's magazine, for which I received, as was the norm then, via money order - 40 rupees. Barely 10 then and this been the early nineties, there were a lot of things 40 rupees could buy. In the simplicity and serenity of those times, 40 rupees was happiness. 

The tale of that first published poem makes the introduction of Fragrance and other poems. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, I have never undertaken any classes or taken any guidance in writing poetry. 

The only poetry workshop I ever attended was a haiku-writing event in late November 2010 - What I imbibed there has played an important role in my poetry writing, in terms of expression, spontaniety, editing, paragraphing, meter and flow.

The inspirations have been from reading poetry across genres and also my love for songs - Be it popular Hindi movie soundtrack playlists, The Beatles, and various English language songs. 

But at what precise poetry sprouted from me, remains a mystery. 

The only thing I am sure of - Unlike short story writing, or any other fiction writing art for that matter, poetry sprouts from the heart. 

At times, I have slept with a notebook and pen by the pillow, to scribble any phrase or thought-line, that would begin a poem, or complete/add on to the one germinating in the many notebooks and journals.

Sometimes a poem can spring from the self in one go, sometimes it completes itself in a few months, and often, a year or years later. Such is its nature. 

Experiencing life and recalling memories play a huge part in poetry writing, only that retelling life in poetry is more organic. The words usually arrive like the monsoon, there is no sway or hold I have in when it will dawn upon me. 

On meter and technique

I follow no fixed meter or technique, but the one that ebbs with the poetry. Wherever the poetry flows, one goes with it. 

Later, once the words have written themselves down, the editing, paragraphing, meter, additions, subtractions are but an afterthought, an attempt at refinement. I usually try to retain the rawness and abandon of the first draft. 

When does one know that the poem is finally done? You never know, but by writing regularly an instinct develops, when one has a sense of a journey's end. 

Afterword 

There it is then, for the record, for your consideration, dear readers, my first poetry collection - Fragrance and other poems.  

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

The first edition front cover

Fiction Reads: The Room on the Roof by Ruskin Bond

Reimagining or recalling teenage life has led to the realization of many literary gems. Roald Dahl's Boy and Going Solo are sparkling examples of reflecting on a thrilling childhood and youth, in selective retelling, decades later. 

The Room on the Roof  (1956) is unique, as Bond points out in the introduction - It's a novel about adolescence, written by an adolescent. The debut novel does offer a rare, immediate perspective on how intense, life-altering and turbulent adolescence can be. 

Sourced from a journal Bond maintained when he was 17, the writings were fictionalized and found a sympathetic publisher in Andre Deutsch.

The book won the 1957 John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, given for outstanding literary achievement to a commonwealth* writer under thirty.

I purchased the book during my trip to Mussoorie, with vague memories of having read it in my twenties.    

Front cover detail from one of the editions

Friendships, love, and rawness: The Room on the Roof is largely raw, but undeniably beautiful and honest, germinating with early callings of the writer Bond would transform into - Use of simple English prose, resplendent with parallels drawn to nature's beauty and a freewheeling life chronicle. 

The genius British comic writer P.G. Wodehouse's early works, especially novels like The Gold Bat (1904) weren't half as funny as his later works, but hinted at a comic genius in the making. Often, a not-so-compelling debut has in its roots, the makings of a better author, if they keep at it.       

The edition I bought at Mussoorie

Stereotyping and immaturity?: Surprisingly, this tale of 16-year-old Anglo-Indian Rusty growing up in Dehradun is told in the third person narrative, instead of what could have been, a more intimate first-person literary telling. It's almost as if Bond wanted to distance himself and consider the text objectively.  

The descriptions of Rusty's new friends, of changing seasons, festivals, the room on the roof, picnics, drunkards, running away from home, his first love, and first kiss, make for compelling reading.

Bond has admitted how he is afraid of anything sophisticated and smart in life, a reoccuring thought in The Room on the Roof. 

That a certain reviewer John Wain, labeled the novel's prose to be babu English is to an extent justified. 

The descriptions of dirt, cows on the street, poverty, chaos, population, and the market are Indian stereotypes that have persisted in foreign media's stunted descriptions of India. In these parts The Room on the Roof feels it may need a rewrite by a wiser, more perspective-rich Bond.

From the heart: The strong trunk and branches of Ruskin Bond's writing has been to narrate with a straight-as-an-arrow approach with a matter-of-fact descriptive style. 

The Room on the Roof may not be an instant classic, but is certainly a gem of a book for the easy charm, wisdom, nature truths, conviction, and belief Ruskin Bond infuses into his writings, reasons why he is still widely read. 

*Commonwealth - An organization whose members are the United Kingdom and some other countries that were once a part of the British Empire. (Oxford languages dictionaries)    

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

A young Ruskin Bond with his cat Suzie

Fiction Reads: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. 

- From The Old Man and the Sea | Page 1

Violence in its varied forms was an endless fascination for American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961). Recurrent themes in his work - War, deep-sea fishing, hunting, bullfighting, great loss, tragedy, and grace under pressure.

The Old Man and the Sea (1952) is a deep dive into man’s bond with nature, the contradictions, ironies, and struggles of a fisherman’s life, culminating in how a man can be destroyed but not defeated. 

Illustration by Michael Nicholson

The Old Man and the Sea synopsis: Man, fish, nature

Santiago, an old deep-sea fisherman lives near the Gulf Stream, on Havana coast, Cuba. He has gone 84 days without taking a fish. 

(How could a man go that many days without taking a fish? Deep sea fishing: this was a time of fishing lines, and most sole fishermen didn’t have access to modern technology that makes fishing today a more lopsided, less adventurous experience.)  

The old man's fishing companion Manolin, a boy who has great affection for the old man, is asked to go on another boat by his family after 40 luckless days. 

The initial pages glide with the boy seeing off the old man on his next fishing trip. 

Rowing his small boat (skiff), the old man gets a huge Marlin trapped in one of his fishing lines. But, as the giant fish begins pulling the boat, an epic man vs. fish battle ensues. 

What fate awaits the old man and the fish? 

Flying fish, illustration by Raymond Sheppard

Epic, detailed, yet concise telling  

Hemingway’s greatest achievement in The Old Man and the Sea is seamless, razor-sharp editing. 

Not a word seems wasted. 

Fitted into 100-odd novella pages - A word more and the tale would have felt stale, redundant, and stretched. That's how precise the telling is. 

Nitpicking - The straightforward narration leaves little room for multiple characters, but then Hemingway is looking for the 'ocean in a drop' experience. 

Sea, fish, old man, fishing line, and boat, are the prime characters. 

The old man’s musings surge with great insights. 

Fish, he utters in one instance, I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before the day ends. 

The old man can't help admiring the fish, but he is bound by his fate and occupation to kill it. 

The fish has the attributes of the old man’s courage and fighting spirit. At many moments, it is like the old man is arm wrestling an equal. 

In the third-person narration and the old man's monologues, the extraordinary resilience of the old man and the Marlin is artfully depicted. 

The old man speaking to his tiring arms, to the Marlin, and how he avoids looking at his late wife’s photograph at home: strains of him battling loneliness with grace and courage. 

The complete story was published in Life magazine before the book's publication.
The magazine edition reportedly sold five million copies.  

The Old Man and the Sea book review 

Hemingway often dived into life-threatening situations. His experiences were the source of his riveting, unsentimental, subtle and intense fiction.

For a long time, no writer came close to conveying with unblinking, crisp prose, the weight of standing up to hardships. 

Hemingway was a rare one. 

The last of the great Hemingway fiction works: in The Old Man and the Sea Hemingway goes where few writers have, in gritty detail on life’s endless mysteries and stark truths.  

Islands in a Stream (1970), published nine years after his death, features a similar fish-boy battle but pales in comparison.  

That The Old Man and the Sea won Hemingway the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) and a Pulitzer (1953) is merely a footnote to the life Hemingway led and how he wrote.

Of late, Hemingway's works have been unfairly dismissed as hyper-masculine. The writer's passion for big game hunting and the brutality of bullfighting may seem odd to many readers now. But his storytelling remains untarnished by time.  

As read in a book preface - There were many imitators of Ernest Hemingway's writing style, but the standard he set was too severe.  

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

Poetry Reads: The Gitanjali Album by Gitanjali Ghei

Gitanjali Ghei (1961-1977)

The Gitanjali Album has been an aching, heartbreaking read. How does a child confront the stark truth that she is dying of cancer? I can’t begin to imagine. 

Discovering Gitanjali

I first heard of Gitanjali Ghei at the fag end of the last century from my ninth-grade teacher. 

A curly-haired bespectacled woman in her late thirties, she often mentioned interesting connected things in passing, instead of going through the syllabus like a tunnel boring machine.

She mentioned a girl whose writings were discovered by her family in the most unlikely places in the house after she had passed on. Then the teacher commenced reading from the textbook and that was that. But that little detail of an adolescent girl’s death and her discovered poetry remained submerged in my memory.

An illustration by Gitanjali

The search for the elusive collection 

Thus began the search to procure a published copy of Gitanjali Ghei's writings. 

The last known edition of Gitanjali's poems had been published by Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, Anand, India. The second edition (1995) followed in the wake of the first (1992). The book has been out of print ever since.

I have been to second-hand book sales and book vendors over the years, having discovered some priceless works, but not Gitanjali’s poetry. Internet’s arrival eventually allowed me to discover if not all but the prominent poems of Gitanjali Ghei.

Finally at the start of 2022, with the world still reeling from the pandemic’s new, milder wave, I chanced upon the 1995 second edition (in good as new condition) on a website that sells rare books.

The copy was dispatched to me via book post from Germany. 

After two suspense-ridden weeks, I finally held the elusive copy in my hands, and a two-decade book search ended.

I began reading with unblinking intensity, my heart, pounding a little.     

Gone too soon...

The Gitanjali Album: A Teenager’s Testament, a collection of poems and notes by Gitanjali, also contains photographs of her and her family, a couple of her sketches, and an interview with her mother.

Gitanjali Ghei’s painful, demolishing fight with cancer began in early 1976. Her poems reflect her struggles to accept impending death, conversations with God, the deep sadness of her family.

The first poem of the collection is a short, nippy one, where Gitanjali hopes to live up to her name. 

As her mother Khushi Badruddin recounts in the interview – She was about 10 or 11 years of age when she realized the full meaning of her name and of the book she was named after. She almost had a showdown with me. “Why did you give me this name?” Do you know it was a Nobel Prize winner?”

To truly sense that there could be no tomorrow, here is Gitanjali ebbing three paragraphs on the dire uncertainties of life. 

The long wait for death is harrowing for Gitanjali. To see her parents and brother watch her fade away daily is even more painful. Here are three extracts from her poems.

Gitanjali vs. death 

Gitanjali wording her anguish as an act of courage and extraordinary grace in the face of pain and death...and that is why the simple verse grazes the heart like a sharp knife. 

Barely an adolescent, Gitanjali tries to seek answers in her bewilderment making this collection a torrid but stoic-faced read. Would we find similar courage if certain but prolonged death looms over us? 

What would we do in the face of death? Is how we live then a precursor to how we will confront death? 

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)