Book Review: Vanishing Words by Sukrita Paul Kumar

Poet and Critic Gopal Lahiri reviews Sukrita Paul Kumar’s poetry collection Vanishing Words (Hawakal Publishers, 2022) calling it a blend of diverse and lyrical sensibility in poems.

• ISBN:978-93-91431-39-6
• Published by: Hawakal Publishers, Kolkata
• Price: INR-450/-

In her latest collection of poems ‘Vanishing Words’ Sukrita depicts a reality on various states of mind struggling against the undulations of life and illuminate the inner life as a singular encounter between physical and spiritual realms. At once fierce and subtle, her poetry combines both diverse and lyrical sensibility, sometimes almost solemn in its utterance. 

The poet’s voice crosses a threshold into a visionary world which it itself creates and where words vanish in a dream state. The voice in some of her poems inscribes a profound longing and desire. For the way their vividness takes root is remarkable.

Sukrita Paul Kumar is an accomplished poet, painter, critic, translator and well-known academic. This is Sukrita’s fifth collection of poems. And there are thirty- four poems in all in this collection accompanied by gem like black and white illustrations by the poet. The poignant clarity of the images makes her poems linger in your mind long after you close the book. She is an important literary voice. The book draws in themes from injustice, disparities, evolution, to the spiritualism and art to shape its brilliant enquiry into how the poetic mind works.