“ Poems Across Time” is a collection of poems of three poets, two belong
to one generation and the third belonging to the next-all from one family.
While all three poets explore transforming personal condition into universal
reflections, they differ significantly in emphasis. DP Acharya’s poems are
while having traces of romanticism, he comes out as a spiritual lyricist
exploring love, separation, and transcendence. Bibhu’s poems are more
philosophical and reflective, concerned with the duty of professional life,
aging, and unrealised ambition, and compromises in public life.
Anshuman’s is a younger voice with sensibility of a globe trotter. His poems
combine travel, exile, ambition, self-discovery and gratitude. Together they
form two generation’s and three individual’s introspection; romantic,
existential and self -transformative.
Debi Acharya’s poems are an intimate journey through love, longing,
memory, and spiritual transcendence. ‘In Good Night’, ‘ The Void Ahead’
and ‘Telepathy,’ the telephone emerges as a poignant metaphor for
connection across distance, simultaneously sustaining intimacy and
intensifying loneliness. Alongside this romantic perception runs a
metaphysical quest. ‘The Ocean’, ‘The Awakening’ and ‘Om Tat sat’ invoke
cosmic imagery and spiritual aspiration. One spots a distinctive emotional
and philosophical texture that emerges from the movement betweenearthly desire and transcendental longing. The imagery is evocative : tears
become dew, dreams blossom into roses, et cetera. The strength of these
poem lies in emotional candour. Love is both a wound and a revelation
here because this is poetry of enduring attachment. How riveting is” your
simple presence/like the/upcoming sun/in the eastern Sky.”?
Bibhu Acharya’s poems are about the hiatus between aspiration and
resignation. These poems are marked by emotional authenticity and
reflective depth. The tragic awakening associated with maturity is
encapsulated in terse unadorned lines below;
‘By the time you
Grow up into
A man of the world
The man in you is dead.’
In” Every day, Friday” , Christ’s crucifixion become a metaphor for daily
prosecution of conscience and truth.
‘Every time, your henchman
Nail me to the cross
A muffled sigh goes up
From someone somewhere.’
The psychological cost of modern professional life is so poignantly
captured in ‘Haiku of hypertension’ where decades of frustration, buried
creativity and bureaucratic absurdity is compressed into sharp, memorableimages. The litany like cadence of ‘ For my son’ invest personal regret with
spiritual dignity. These poems. are an autobiography of conscience. They
are witness to loss, dreams, aging, hopes, and stubborn resilience of
human spirit. They are acknowledgements of the existence through a moral
seriousness.
“Mundane to Monumental’ is a celebration of growth. What comes out
clearly is a global citizen, thinking and feeling individual wrestling with the
complexities of modern life. The poems explore displacement. There is
emotional depth in the exploration of the home and the exile, India and
West, memory and desire. But the outlook which finally emerges favours
gratitude over despair and action over resignation. The poems in the
collection are marked by earnestness. They embrace vulnerability without
trying to dazzle. The poet remains intensely present to experience. The
external journey invariably becomes an inner one too. They are poems of
hope, redemption, and renewal.
‘Forget the past
Enjoy today
And if you’ve got will
You’ll find a way’( Scene iv)
‘An open land, and open mind, they say
With solitude plentiful to confide in.’(Icelandic Saga)These poems are a lyrical chronicle of becoming. The restless spirit
navigates exile, love, ambition, uncertainty, and self discovery. Ansuman’s
poems, transform personal experience into meditation on belonging and
purpose.
‘ Out of own soul tunnel, I’ll rise and rebound
Shine!”
These are poems of discovery and renewal of a displaced but reconciled
poet. Finally they are poems of quiet hope.
This enticingly harmonious collection is like a rich contrapuntal bouquet of
roses, blue Iris, and chrysanthemums. This is a book in which red Roses
burn at the heart, blue Irises rise like quiet thoughts and the
chrysanthemums opening around them in generous profusion. There is an
unmissable interplay of difference rather than uniformity among three poets’
creation. Readers are recommended this volume to enjoy the different
cadence of human struggle and their acceptance.
