Versatile verses

Geetu Vaid

Verse has a way of touching the invisible chords of human psyche building a bridge between people irrespective of age, profession, culture and class. The empathy thus forges a strong connect with the writer. It is this connect that Dr Sonica Krishan seeks to establish with Silent Musings. This is the sixth book by Sonica, a practising Ayurveda doctor, but the first one of poems. 

With around 100 poems, Sonica brings a wide range of emotions and subjects on the table. She voices the regret over lost opportunities as “And at the end/The blessed moments/Appeared but a stigma,/I was left with your happiness/And you had taken mine.” (Because We Never Cared) and questions the Supreme one with “Are you there, my Lord?/Do you ever hear/ The silence of my agony!/when each day/ I pray to you”(Does Faith Lead Life). 

Complexities of human relationships and emotions, though, are the key undercurrents in almost all the poems. Use of rhyming, imagery and alliteration is, however, limited as the poet prefers to soar on the wings of free verse rather than getting tied in the “system” of metre and rhyme. However, the last poem Why The Musings Are Silent? from where the book draws its title has a strong dose of rhyming .”There is clatter, there are dialogues,/And there is an array of enduring pretence/Yet in my abyss of Silence.../There is only reticence”.

While the staple fare of poetry right from moon, seasons, daffodils, friends, God, relationships, love, birds, sea, is all there, what makes the collection stand out is the versatility as well as the simple and sincere manner in which Sonica communicates with her readers.