About the book:
Title: Yearnings
Author: Vishü Rita Krocha
Publisher: PenThrill Publications
Pages: 126/ Paperback; Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 978-81-936619-7-0
Sigmund Freud, the Austrian psychoanalyst, in presenting his concept of Creative Writing asserts that every adult indulges in day-dreams which are actually unfulfilled wishes which get accumulated as a child grows into adulthood. Everybody day-dreams, consciously or unconsciously yet there are certain people whose day-dreams we are particularly pulled towards – those he says are creative writers. Not because they have something else to say but because they embellish and imaginatively express themselves.
Yearnings by Vishü Rita Krocha is a collection of 60 poems ranging from one to 16 liners. As the title indicates, she talks of nostalgia, the loss of familiarity. The loss is not just of one person but she laments for everyone and every good thing she lost in life – a beloved, a lover, a friend, childhood, the gone years and passed days, the fleeting seasons. The poems reverberate of one that hurts, yet doesn’t rave and rant but quietly and gracefully accepts without bitterness and says “just let the world be”. That is the philosophy conveyed.
Besides the thematic focus of love and loss, the natural elements string the poems together…the rain, the wildflowers, the golden fields, the sky, the Seasons – April, March, Spring, Autumn. These phenomena not only inspire her but bestow her solace and peace placing her among the Romantics.
One remarkable element of the poet is her ability to capture and accentuate the subtlest shade of mundane emotion that we very often miss out. Here in this collection, every delicate layer of loss and yearning is heightened. The ache is evident yet you sense a growth and depth as she establishes herself as a poet.
Down history, irrespective of race, gender or place, with writers, you note a change in every stages paraded before the eyes of the reader. Yearnings, as we understand, is a piece of her, a crucial fragment which enables her to live, love and write. Memories have actually become assets.
Yearnings is an expression which resonates universal loves and losses. As you flip through the pages, you wonder at her story yet you relate more so to yourself. You find yourself in her lines. You find a reflection of your own unexpressed thoughts and heartaches.
Thus, as a creative piece, it rightfully passes into what we know as Literature. And so in conclusion, I reiterate Roland Barthes, the French Philosopher, that Literature is a space where all identity is lost – both the writer and the reader become part of this neutral zone…the moment writing stops, the author dies and the reader is born. The text suddenly explodes with multiplicity of meanings…each reader finds his centre in his own interpretation of the text. Writing, thus, finds its destination in reading. The author has done her job, now we readers are at liberty to find our centres in it.
Dr. Kevizonuo Kuolie is an assistant professor at ICFAI University, Nagaland
