3 out of 4 stars
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Of Illusions and Ink Spills by Divya Hirani is a book containing a collection of free-verse poems, that are told from the perspective of a 'young professional immigrant in a foreign land.’ The collection contains a diverse selection of poems: some that rhyme and some that don't, some that are as short as 4 lines and others that are quite long. The themes of the poems also vary with some of them even having immigration as a theme. It is however, contrary to my expectations, not the central theme in all the poems.
The good thing with a good poetry collection is that you can never claim to have been bored while reading it. At least not by all of the poems. This is also the case in Of Illusions and Ink Spills. A number of the poems were easily understandable and enjoyable. However, it is also true that of every poem collection, it is almost impossible to fall in love with (or even understand) all of the poems. For instance, I enjoyed 'Silly poem' more than I enjoyed 'Separation.' This was because of the beautiful and flowery language used in the poem 'Silly poem' which is about the intricacies of being a poet.
Another great aspect of this book is how each poem dealt with a theme on its own, but also contributed to the overall message of the collection. Most of the poems had profound meanings and impacts on their own, but when all poems were taken as a collection, sent an even larger impact to the reader (me). It is one of the reasons why I re-read the entire book twice over; just to try and tie the individual poems and their messages together to bring the writer's perspective and thoughts to life.
Despite its obvious strengths, I had two concerns about the book. The first one is about the formatting of the book. It would have made a lot of sense if every poem was typed on its own page, so as to ensure that the readers have an easy time following each poem to its natural end. However, this was not in the case as there were instances when a poem spilled over to another page which discouraged me from reading it to the end. The second concern was the writer's usage of some vocabulary and phrases that I did not understand. Granted, poetry utilizes a lot of complex vocabulary and sentence structures, I felt that it could have been made easier for us (the readers). For instance, the line 'Tell tale till going kaching' was baffling and difficult to decipher.
All in all, I enjoyed reading the poems and getting to know more about the writer's perspective on many societal issues. It is for this reason that I rate the book 3 out of 4 stars. I recommend it highly to all poetry lovers. It is important to note that I found no grammatical errors while reading it.
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Of Illusions and Ink Spills
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