Pramila Venkateswaran reviews After Grief by Shikhandin in Verseville.

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“Death is a rusty truck / bulldozing in to trash / the morning,” begins Shikandin’s After Grief, which is an exploration of death, loss, separation from family, and finding light. Most of the poems, some of which are autobiographical, offers us the poet’s introspection of the threshold between life and death, glimpsing that which is veiled. Through a rich tapestry of images, she allows us moments of rapture. Interestingly, the tapestried cover, repeated as sectional divides, matches the rich imagery of the poems. Natural landscapes, seascapes, domestic scenes populate the settings of the poems and offer imagery spanning the physical and the metaphysical. Shikandin teaches us the many hues of grief. I love the ending of “Unwanted,” where grief is concretized; we hold grief close, experiencing it fully, its softness and jaggedness, as we read: “hold it close — this juddering / of ribs. This folding of shoulders. These / unblinking eyes that defy the saturation of clouds.” Some endings of poems heart-stoppers, such as, “your hands / even time’s wheel would turn into clay.”

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Read the complete review here. 

http://www.verseville.org/after-grief-by-shikhandin-red-river-2021-reviewed-by-pramila-venkateswaran.html