Review of Mitali Chakravarty’s ‘From Calcutta to Kolkata: A City of Dreams: Poems’ (Hawakal Publishers Pvt Ltd, 2025)
and for every grave / a firefly burns / and for every grave / Dhaka never learns
Scorching in a way the April sun never was. / Scorching in a way a fever never feels. / It wasn't just grief
'On the Other Side of Silence' is a thoughtful volume of poetry, not just because it summarises every existential crisis that visits contemporary life but also because it engages, unlike a postmodern cynic, with the issues that plague the world
It would rain in the rains / And the rest of this poem would be written by someone else
There’s a purgatorial break between these stretches …flaxen against the lights
So go in peace, be free, be kind.
You thought you had escaped, didn't you? / Outran everything that weighed you down
A quiet, seniority in its touch, / A tenderness that feels like it's meant to last
Review of Mitali Chakravarty’s ‘From Calcutta to Kolkata: A City of Dreams: Poems’ (Hawakal Publishers Pvt Ltd, 2025)
and for every grave / a firefly burns / and for every grave / Dhaka never learns
Scorching in a way the April sun never was. / Scorching in a way a fever never feels. / It wasn't just grief
'On the Other Side of Silence' is a thoughtful volume of poetry, not just because it summarises every existential crisis that visits contemporary life but also because it engages, unlike a postmodern cynic, with the issues that plague the world
It would rain in the rains / And the rest of this poem would be written by someone else
There’s a purgatorial break between these stretches …flaxen against the lights
So go in peace, be free, be kind.
A quiet, seniority in its touch, / A tenderness that feels like it's meant to last
You thought you had escaped, didn't you? / Outran everything that weighed you down
Sometimes at early dawn / You overpower my eyelids / And won’t let me wake up
