Reading Time: 4 minutes
Because beauty at its purest is fierce, powerful and terrible captivates the reader. Wani Nazir’s poems have that eerie beauty in them, says Samrudhi, reviewing his book of poems, And the Silence Whispered, exclusively in Different Truths.
Genre: Poetry
Author: Wani Nazir
Year of Publication: 2017
Published by: Global Fraternity of Poets, Haryana.
ISBN: 978-93-83755-36-3
Pages: 148, Paperback
Price: INR. 340.00/ US$. 22.00
“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry” ― Emily Dickinson.
Yes, that is what the power of poetry is – merciless in its avalanche, dangerous in its progression and 
addictive in its embrace. And that is the reason why sometimes when I am tempted to open another anthology of poems, I have to steel my being for the consequences. And I, just a budding poet, who has found solace in her verses, 3 AM thoughts metamorphosed into a flow of scribbles in the eerie darkness of night, was honestly surprised to find my name in the ‘acknowledgement’ section of Wani Nazir’s debutante collection of poems, And the Silence Whispered. I have been associated with Wani Nazir since a couple of months on Facebook. I was unsure of how I would write a review on a work that far supersedes the power of praise in mere words. But then that is what real poetry is meant to be – it brings smiles, but those smiles are overshadowed by tears, tears that unite two unknown souls in an umbrella of understanding. And very often, while reading these hundred-odd poems, my vision was blurred by tears hovering unshed behind my lashes.
And the Silence Whispered – the title itself took my heart with it. Who would understand better than me, how much more powerful silence is than words, meaningless conversations? And those poems, so many of them, brought a strange chill down my spine, charging down a chaotic imbroglio of emotions that a poet turned reader could very well contemplate but at the same time couldn’t come to terms with. Because beauty at its purest is fierce, powerful and terrible. And Wani Nazir’s poems have that eerie beauty in them. They lured me through the dark taverns of a long-buried past, through endless hours of musings on my own, once more making me wonder at the ebullient power of the pen.
Perhaps the shortest poem in the book, but then why measure its depth by its length? “Epigram” is one such string of verses that continues to resound in my ears:
“I am alive!
Because
The fire within me burns brighter
Than the fire without me!”
The book is a compendium of the most powerful of emotions of varying spectrums united under a reverse prism – like the seven colours of light entwined into a fierce, blazing streak of White light. The best of writers are poets because they have chosen not to accept the norms of a modern dystopia and have decided to rebel. And so also the poem “Beware O’ World!” talks about the poet’s resilience and self-belief. To quote a few lines,
“The shrieks of my silence
Will one day ruin
Your auditory paraphernalia.
And you will believe
That my worldliness was naught,
Save a calm but frenzied sea of
Before it turns fiercely tumultuous.”
The book isn’t something you can easily put down, for the flow of words, is nothing short of an addiction. I read the whole book in a single stretch, over a two-hour stretch, repeatedly wiping away the tears that blurred my vision time and gain. Pain bleeds into poetry and somehow, we all are united under the umbrella of pain. But then, pain isn’t always a negative emotion, for pain is associated with love, with memories, with experiences through which we discover ourselves. Another poem which echoes my own thoughts and which I can’t justifiably ignore is “Let The Bridge Be There!” To again quote some of its lines that stirred the depths of my heart,
“The bridge of conviction
That once riveted us
Reduced to ashes
On the pyre of shouldering mistrust;
Ashes -sable like the black wisps
Of infernal darkness!
But I will not consign the ashes
To the Ganges;
Let them stay there,
And fill arbitrarily the cracks
…
Let the bridge be there,
No doubt, of the ashes though!”
The conviction in the poem is indeed remarkable and it reaffirms my personal belief, my choice to keep living with my memories than moving on with new ties.
To conclude, it has been a tumultuous upsurge of many kaleidoscopic emotions, nevertheless a satiating, engrossing and wholesome read, one that I shall forever cherish. Poetry makes you smile, cry, live, laugh, love, die and live again, the power of resurrection is always there. And Wani Nazir’s poems while dismantling conventional notions of rhyme and rhythm, reaffirm my faith in the subtle strength of verses to dramatically question as well as alter the notions of stereotypical social constitutions. Yes, Wani Nazir, “Never Shall (you) Die” for such is the pull of your quill that it will continue to echo through the ages – a song of eternity!To end with my own words,
“She is fire and ice
You shall fear the cold and crave the burn!
She is beautifully broken, wonderfully flawed, paradoxically perfect
She is poetry!”
©Samrudhi Dash
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