[ultimate_heading main_heading=”Journey to the Heart Waters” main_heading_color=”#1e73be” sub_heading_color=”#8224e3″ spacer=”line_with_icon” spacer_position=”bottom” line_style=”dotted” line_height=”1″ line_color=”#1e73be” icon_type=”custom” icon_img=”id^48|url^http://ashvamegh.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ashvamegh-ICO.jpg|caption^null|alt^Ashvamegh Journal Icon|title^Ashvamegh ICO|description^null” img_width=”48″ main_heading_style=”font-weight:bold;” main_heading_font_size=”desktop:34px;” line_width=”3″ margin_design_tab_text=””]a journey loaded with poems…[/ultimate_heading]
Book: Journey to the Heart Waters
Author: Louisa Calio
Publisher: Legas, 2014
Page: 78
Reviewed by: Alok Mishra
Rarely would you find a modern reader or a poet in English, irrespective of his/her country, who does not know the name Louisa Calio, a modern (more a contemporary poet with the same class of those who have left). Louisa Calio, as we all know, has written two books and her poems have featured in different anthologies. The present book, which I have recently finished, by Louisa – Journey to the Heart Waters, is an amazing book from a poet of her class!
The book is full of poems which are moving with the poetess, feeling words, animated phrases, realistic emotions and the beautiful narration of Louisa has made the reading experience wonderful! Just take a look on the following lines:
“Why do I roam?
Is it only to seek a lover from another culture
or is there a greater mystery at work
a modern day miracle play
a tribal genesis I am to follow
a labyrinth-like route to my ancient,
ancestral roots?”
The poems have a motive behind each articulated word. Louisa has uncovered completely her feelings and also the representation that she gives to the world around her seems full of realism. You can feel in the lines below how the world has changed with time… the poet is talking:
“Sufi men in colorful beaded caps
drumming and chanting by the road side
seem oblivious to my passing.
Only begging leper women
whose uncovered hands
look burned and charred
reach out to me with tolerance.”
You can clearly see the thing that reaches out to the poet is ‘uncovered hands’. Louisa has wonderfully recorded the voice, as if it is, the voice of entire humanity! There are many instances like this in the book of Louisa.
One more poem that I would strongly like to mention from the book is on the page number 13. Louisa is talking about some students. Talking and talking and something propels her to end her poem with the following line:
“A space alien would appear more human and friendly.”
We can see a taste of pessimism in her poems. However, the pessimism is no far from the realism.
Other than these emotions, the book by Louisa Calio is also full of instances where she presents the landscape of the places she visits. She becomes an archaeologist at times when she digs out the roots of her existence… The poems at times are also exhibiting the feminism of the poetess. Let’s observe the following line:
“We are the galaxies in miniature.”
Well, I have enjoyed all the poems that Louisa has penned in the book. I hope you will also like those once you go through. You can get her book from amazon online store. Happy reading!
