AMITY: PEACE POEMS

Edited by SAHANA AHMED Hawakal pp. 169, `400

The marketing of this book is a bit misleading. It is packaged like a stodgy, ponderous volume full of platitudes and circumlocutions masquerading as poems all for a safe cause. But Amity: Peace Poems, curated by Sahana Ahmed, herself a poet and fiction writer, packs a punch and some surprises. Featuring 47 writers from eight countries, it contains simple, honest reflections evoking a whole gamut of emotions from cutesy humour to rage, exact, beautiful language and offbeat rhyme. It is the iPhone as a metaphor for privilege that unites the Parisienne Karen and the hijabi Delhi'ite, for instance, in one of Ahmed's pieces, while Kiran Bhat "needs to stop listening to her family" if she is serious about finding her peace. The foreword is by Naveen Patnaik.

A secretly entertaining offering!