Book Review: Clamour for a Handful of Rice by Sonnet Mondal
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Jonaki Ray reviews Clamour for a Handful of Rice by Sonnet Mondal (Copper Coin, 2024)
Clamour for a Handful of Rice, the latest poetry collection of author, literary curator, and editor Sonnet Mondal, deals with the themes of loss, war, survival, and hope. The poems in this book are in keeping with his previous work that focused on the many inequities and injustices faced by those we consider voiceless and the resilience that persists within them. The wars and daily life battles both in India and the world, and their impact on nature and the fabric of a society, are highlights of this collection, not to mention topical to the current times. To the Children of Gaza, for instance, weaves in climate change with the deaths of innocent children:
As we went to the balcony to get fresh air
the wind carrying the smell of rain stopped.
Wasn’t that the sound of wind
I heard from inside my room?
Or have too many parents with their dead children
come out today?
