My first poetry anthology: Fragrance and other poems by Snehith Kumbla

The second edition ebook front cover

This is convey, with much joy, that I have published a selection of my poems on Amazon Kindle and paperback. The Kindle edition is available across the world on the Amazon website and the Kindle app. The paperback edition is not yet available in India, at the time of writing.

The India Kindle edition is priced INR 100.  

Fragrance and other poems by Snehith Kumbla: Select purchase links: 

The Amazon (India) link: https://amzn.eu/d/eSLL0B7

The Amazon (US) link: https://a.co/d/7TjEajX

The Amazon (UK) link: https://amzn.eu/d/8YN2OQS

Fourteen poems, one volume

Of the 14 poems featured here, the first six are inevitably about love. 

Fragrance is of absence and fondness.

Her Yellow Dress is on the overpowering allure of beauty.

Body Ink, Siren and Craving are odes to desire and attraction. 

Auria is of dreamy, snuggle-meshed lovemaking.

A nod to nature in Still, renewed beginnings in New Day, celebrating hugs and winter in Warmth, the doom of heartbreak in Fall.

Ordinariness is of jobs and dead routine.

Bhang Diary celebrates the riotous, wild times of holi, the festival of colours, and the intake of the delicious, mischief-dripping beverage - bhang.

Listen, Rain is an ode to the many beautiful thunderous rain-rich evenings.

Dive is a call to the self - That everything is waiting at the other end of fear.

An image from the Kindle/Paperback edition

On poetry 

I do not recall the first line of poetry I wrote. 

I do recollect the first poem that was published in a children's magazine, for which I received, as was the norm then, via money order - 40 rupees. Barely 10 then and this been the early nineties, there were a lot of things 40 rupees could buy. In the simplicity and serenity of those times, 40 rupees was happiness. 

The tale of that first published poem makes the introduction of Fragrance and other poems. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, I have never undertaken any classes or taken any guidance in writing poetry. 

The only poetry workshop I ever attended was a haiku-writing event in late November 2010 - What I imbibed there has played an important role in my poetry writing, in terms of expression, spontaniety, editing, paragraphing, meter and flow.

The inspirations have been from reading poetry across genres and also my love for songs - Be it popular Hindi movie soundtrack playlists, The Beatles, and various English language songs. 

But at what precise poetry sprouted from me, remains a mystery. 

The only thing I am sure of - Unlike short story writing, or any other fiction writing art for that matter, poetry sprouts from the heart. 

At times, I have slept with a notebook and pen by the pillow, to scribble any phrase or thought-line, that would begin a poem, or complete/add on to the one germinating in the many notebooks and journals.

Sometimes a poem can spring from the self in one go, sometimes it completes itself in a few months, and often, a year or years later. Such is its nature. 

Experiencing life and recalling memories play a huge part in poetry writing, only that retelling life in poetry is more organic. The words usually arrive like the monsoon, there is no sway or hold I have in when it will dawn upon me. 

On meter and technique

I follow no fixed meter or technique, but the one that ebbs with the poetry. Wherever the poetry flows, one goes with it. 

Later, once the words have written themselves down, the editing, paragraphing, meter, additions, subtractions are but an afterthought, an attempt at refinement. I usually try to retain the rawness and abandon of the first draft. 

When does one know that the poem is finally done? You never know, but by writing regularly an instinct develops, when one has a sense of a journey's end. 

Afterword 

There it is then, for the record, for your consideration, dear readers, my first poetry collection - Fragrance and other poems.  

(Article by Snehith Kumbla)

The first edition alternative paperback cover 

Published Poetry: Five New Poems by Snehith Kumbla in the Muse India Journal (Mar-Apr 2018)

Five of my new poems have been published in the Mar-Apr 2018 edition of the prestigious Muse India literary journal. These poems were each written at different times, some pieced together over years, but most of them wrote themselves in one flow.

fear not your loneliness
fear not your cowardice

you in countlessness
you in me-them-us-ness

Ordinariness is about the resignation and defeat to the widespread human nature of routine. Nothing comforts us like routine and nothing unsettles us like attempting new things. The first two lines of the poem were waiting alone in a forgotten notebook for quite some time. It was some years later that other words arrived to complete the train of thought.

a bicycle tinkle
hovers on the
footpath

alone

into the jaws
of gregarious
traffic

Evening Walk, City is about that one stroll among the many post lunch strolls I took around my former workplace. Pune, a charming, nature-rich small town was losing its richness at a rapid rate. In the space of one afternoon, you could witness the blatant destruction and yet go on, unaffected. 

when
it splashes in
dark coated ink
you may yet see
what you are made of

Sadness was written at a low moment, yet there is more to learn from grief than there is ever to imbibe from utter happiness. When one dwells deep in sadness or into any other aspect of life, surprises appear tranquil and dancing to the morning breeze.

right on cue lightning
strikes, genuinely afraid
they embrace for dear life

Late Night TV is a chronicle of perversion, the consequence of a sexually repressed culture. Sex education can make so many young and teenage lives better, but we are eons away from any revolution or insight in that aspect. Widely available porn and provocative content only add to the delusions and blindness.

life is outdoors
in its throbbing
and uncertainties,
pleasured and seething,

Youth Invincible Youth is an ode to age, about embracing reality in all its pain and joy. It is a celebration and teeny weeny nudge to step outdoors, bask in the sunshine, rain, winter,  and spring. It is about moving away from computers and cell phones whenever we can and experience life as the young experience it, in all its purity and freshness.

Gulmohars, Yo!

My Poetry in Poster Art

I am featuring a selection of my poems in poster art, just for kicks. It is great fun to revisit the poems and the feeling, passion and time during which they flowed out on paper. You may view the selection on my blog: Snehith's Poster Art and Other Diversions. 

Published Poetry: 'Fear'

This is to document that my poem 'Fear' has appeared in the Nov-Dec 2013 issue of  Reading Hour magazine.

Published Poetry: Fragrance by Snehith Kumbla

This is how I see it. Poetry is a bird song, uttered so, for it spouts from the heart, and is similarly written down. Having a writing device on the ready is a handy habit, for words may rush in anytime. A common feature of a poem is its flow and spontaneity.

The first draft is usually the crux of it. Polish, in the form of attention to meter, rhyme, paragraphing, punctuation, grammar, spelling and an appropriate title usually follow in subsequent drafts. While I mentioned grammar in the last sentence, a poem can have its own language. Unlike prose, a poem may not be bound to any structure.

There is no end to the themes that poets have chose to write on over the centuries. Now, if we were to encapsulate all the poems ever written into two sections, what would they be? Here we trail Urdu poetry and its branching out into two - there is the ghazal where poets tend to self-reflect and look inwardly. Then there is the nazm where observation of the outwardly world is the central theme. This division can be applied to poems in general, if only for the purpose of differentiation and documentation.

Enough talk. To conclude, here is the poem that was first published in the September-October 2011 issue of Reading Hour Magazine with the title ‘Pang’. It is presented here with edits:

Fragrance
by Snehith Kumbla

the music of a drizzle,
wet smell of earth

a sun scattered face,
some winter morning

the moonlight walks
with me, at dusk

sleep glows in
a deep cave

I dwell on you...

#

Published Poetry: Scrap Collector's Diary by Snehith Kumbla

have sieved the

ruins of discarded

things,

sometimes finding

on an old magazine,

pictures of women,

looking through you

with ageless eyes

block square keys of

a typewriter,

cardboard covers

of fragile messages,

images of shattering

glass,

empty bottles of

RAT POISON,

‘Kamasutra for beginners'

‘The lonely wife’

other clandestine

books, sometimes,

extracted from some

secret wardrobe chamber,

wrapped in brown paper

school notebooks with

red tick-marks, blots, rights,

wrongs, devastating

stories of marks, homework,

a light bulb that still works,

the legs of a chair,

toy horses, toy cars,

scratched plastic

gaping holes in mugs, buckets,

fake notes from a crumpled game

of monopoly,

a dead dog's collar, a heavy rusted screw,

every night in my dreams,

they come hopping over a barn,

now you know,

that I do not count sheep

#

(This poem was first published in the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Reading Hour Magazine.)

Published Poetry: Bhang Diary by Snehith Kumbla

when I laugh,
the whole body,
one big mouth
of laughter

when I sing,
words emit
like a
seismograph

If I squat, drowsy,
all my teeth are
melting down
a whirlpool

walk, look back
and wonder,
whose vanishing
footsteps
are they,

meanwhile,
my as-lost-as-me
friends, frantic for
shade in the sun,
and can't find it

together, like a
splash of colours,
we lie in the garden
for the madness to pass

later, at home they ask
about the blood red
eyes, I say, it was
some colour, some holi

(This poem was first published in the Mar-Apr 2012 issue of Reading Hour magazine.)

Published Poetry: 'Take My Hand'

My poem 'Take My Hand' appears in the March-April 2013 issue of the Reading Hour magazine.

Published Poetry: 'Bhang Diary' & 'Road Naming Ceremony'

The Bangalore based literary magazine Reading Hour has published my poem 'Bhang Diary' in the Mar-Apr 2012 issue. The poem chronicles the effects of the herbal drink on the day of holi. Another poem 'Road Naming Ceremony' is featured in the same magazine's blog page. You can read the poem at the following link: Road Naming Ceremony.

post school

grey afternoon,
of surprise tests,
demonic teachers

Malavli on January 1, 2011

trailing
turning in the back seat
a sun ripening

breathless
stone steps
end abruptly

dark chamber
eyes shut tight
a shrill, thin whistle

rock to rock
airborne feet
dancing

"Make new," said Erza Pound.