Super excited to share this beautiful review of my third collection of poems, Book of Prayers for the Nonbelievers (Red River, 2018), by my friend Abhimanyu Kumar, who has championed a couple of these poems even before the book was made, giving them a home in The Sunflower Collective.

Abhimanyu writes: “The poem We Renounce appears almost towards the end of the book. It is a personal favourite of this reviewer. It speaks of the last sermon by Buddha to his favourite disciple Anand and is rich in deep philosophical insights, while humanising the old and ailing Buddha. “I sought to escape this cycle of illusions and / I failed, the day I longed for company, / the day you came to me. Let me go, it’s time. / And now, I remember him, my infant son / and I wish if I could say sorry for not being / the father I ought to have been. Let me go, it’s time.” The repetition of the phrase ‘Let me go, its time’ brings a musical cadence to the poem.”

Thank you, Abhimanyu, for reading the poems so closely and sympathetically. This is the best review of the book yet.   

https://sunflowercollective.blogspot.com/2021/07/tsc-book-review-poetry-book-of-prayers.html