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 This second collection of poems, essays and stories represents a more deliberate attempt at poetic and esthetic experimentation. For a long time after Songs of the Hearth (1993), I sincerely believed that I would not be able to write any more poetry. I felt that within that first volume is contained every possible range of emotions, desires, prayers and so on.
I thought I had written my heart out. At appropriate moments, I would look up the particular poem to suit the need of the present and read it over again. It was therefore with great surprise that I found myself beginning once again to scribble down (sometimes on any available scrap of paper) thoughts, emotions, needs and questions as they would occur to me. Whenever the inspiring thought flashed through my mind (sometimes even while driving), I would pull up by the roadside and scribble; I would sleep and wake up and scribble feverishly because experience has thought me that if I do not, I would forget the particular inspiration. Thus, I had learnt to trust my intuitions and dreams that much. In essence, I now know that I have to, and must continually write because human beings are not static and neither are their thoughts. People grow daily in their thoughts, and in the emotions they feel as they go through different life experiences. My earlier feelings on issues, or even my perception of the same people would in time change. This is the dynamic process of organic growth which is continual. Change is thus the only constant there is. These poems, essays and stories thus represent my effort to think more clearly, to work out problems; they constitute “my momentary stay against confusion,� my effort to attend to the interior life, to explore new feelings and to gauge the quality of both old and new experiences. Library of Congress Catalog No: PS3563.E99H66 2004 ISBN 0-87831-069-X paper $20.00 ISBN 0-87831-070-3 cloth $40.00 |
