I have been a reader of poetry for long enough and recently, I have read a few poetry collections in Hindi as well as English. However, I will share the review first for one English poetry collection that I have read and it has been penned by one of the leading English poets in India at present, Vihang Naik. His collection, republished by AuthorsPress, Making a Poem is a beautiful collection of poems on poetry, the poet himself and the art of words. It has 25 short poems (almost all of them sparing 2-3 which are a little longer than those). I will share my reading experience with all of you in a short review of this poetry collection.

“Dead poets
haunt your dreams
and disturb your sleep.”

Vihang writes this at the beginning of his poem A Disturbed Sleep and he is all-valid and justified while he makes such an assumption… of course, the poets are disturbed the most by the poets only – whether dead or alive. With assumptions like this which become axioms and with other thoughts which seem bizarre at times and accurate on other moments, Making a Poem cruises in the wild ocean of interpretations and the readers are left with waves rising and falling…

“… You hear
the rattle of pain

through your pen in turmoil.”

Vihang Naik has written with honesty and with a shared vision among the fellow poets. And, as a poetry reader, I can certainly see across that pain – what does a poet feel most of the times while ‘making a poem’ happen on the paper.

Vihang’s collection will offer the readers solace as well as shivers. It has the unique quality of acting up to one’s mood and that’s the beauty a poet can create with his mere pen! Pen… pain… write the right… write the riot…

And critically speaking, some of the poems contain a lot to tell about the modern Indian English poetry. Vihang’s words are the reflections of the contemporary trends in English poetry in India and it reflects to me a restlessness because almost everything constant has already been written and, eventually, forgotten!

So far rating is concerned, I will keep the dots to 4 for this collection by Vihang because it does throw the hat into the white space for the intellectuals and serious readers like me, it does not offer a lot to the casual readers of poetry like my friends X, Y and Z. Nevertheless, I am taking nothing away from the seriousness of the poet because one has to be; however, only melancholy cannot win every mood and it does need to have humour and light atmosphere at times which Vihang’s poetry rarely displayed…

You can get the collection of poems written by Vihang Naik from the link below:

Making a Poem – Buy Online – Click Here (Amazon link)

review by Nishita for Active Reader