How Sumana Roy shows “the poet must hide & the reader must look for the hidden” in Out Of Syllabus

Reviewed by Rakhi Dalal

Title: Out of Syllabus

Author: Sumana Roy

Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, 2019

Sumana Roy is a poet, novelist and essayist. She has authored three books including How I Became a Tree (memoir/non-fiction), Missing (fiction) and Out of Syllabus (poetry). Recently, she has edited a story collection called Animalia Indica. Her work has appeared in various prestigious literary magazines, newspapers and journals. She teaches at Ashoka University as Associate Professor, Creative Writing.

Out of Syllabus has 35 poems. These are categorized under different sections in different fields of study like mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry and so on. At first glance, a reader might wonder about the ordering of sections but as Sumana says:

“..the essence of the poetic— the poet must hide, the reader must look for the hidden. And that a poem is often not about what one began meaning or imagining it to be.”

                                                 ———– Life in Stanzas, Open Magazine.

The reader must find a meaning for herself.