Why verse is often better

The English poet Fiona Benson saved me from a dismal January weeks before the pandemic would make that month seem glorious when compared with the rest of the year Her collection of poems Vertigo amp Ghost was published in 2019 and I plunged into it with much happinessOn the surface her work shouldnrsquot have moved me as much as it did given how the first half focused exclusively on the Greek god Zeus And yet there were startling parallels between the violence of that antiquated world and what Indiarsquos women were grappling with at the time I came away from the book shaken but rejuvenated in the way only good poetry can act like a tonic for the soulItrsquos hard to comment on whether we read as much poetry as we should I can count the number of bookstores that stock great poetry on one hand which is sad because poetry often allows us to understand aspects of our lives that we rarely stop to focus onFor instance reading Ilya Kaminskyrsquos Deaf Republic also published in 2019 held a mirror to the dystopia that India was turning into one that millions of us had accepted without question only because it didnrsquot appear to have any immediate consequences on our daytoday lives It also implicated us in our complicity because we chose silence instead of speaking upMidway through the year Life on Mars American poet Tracy K Smithrsquos Pulitzerwinning collection from 2012 taught me about death It forced me to contemplate the possibility of my own story ending prematurely as millions began to die of Covid19 lsquoPerhaps the great error is believing wersquore alonersquo she wrote in the poem My God Itrsquos Full of Stars lsquoThat the others have come and gone mdash a momentary blip When all along space might be chocfull of trafficrsquo For a minute there it made me feel less alone for which I was gratefulI learned a lot about resistance from Danez Smith the HIVpositive queer American poet whose 2017 collection Donrsquot Call Us Dead took an uncomfortable look at racism that suddenly became a battle for that countryrsquos identity in the weeks leading up to its Presidential election There was a deep sadness in those poems a recognition that little appeared to have changed over centuries And yet there was defiance and hope as Smith ended the powerful lsquodear white americarsquo thus lsquothis new story amp history you cannot steal or sell or cast overboard or hang or beat or drown or own or redline or shackle or silence or cheat or choke or cover up or jail or shoot or jail or shoot or jail or shoot or ruin this if only this one is oursrsquoThe English poet Jay Bernardrsquos debut collection Surge added much to my understanding of how identities are being reshaped across the globe specifically in communities that are being marginalised and squeezed out of the spaces they live in by powerful forces beyond their control As I read Bernardrsquos poems about police discrimination the difference between public and private truths and how governments often failed to address the concerns of the most vulnerable members of society there were farmers marching towards Parliament in India There should have been no parallels between those groups of people Bernardrsquos British victims and Indiarsquos poor but there were and that resonance gave his work powerIt wasnrsquot all dark and gloomy reading either In the poet Ross Gayrsquos 2015 collection Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude I found happiness and a celebration of the little things that give our lives meaning This was a world where even the survivor of a heart attack had a lsquopacemakerrsquos scar grinning across his chestrsquo where the poet showed his deep appreciation for what so many of us take for granted It made for particularly poignant reading as wave after wave of infections shut the worldrsquos biggest cities down reminding us all of how fragile we really areAs I end this column my eyes alight upon a new anthology titled Singing in the Dark a global collection documenting how poets have responded to the pandemic A Google search reveals several new collections all of which were published while the world hunkered down and prayed for better times We wept lost much of what was important to us and probably gave up more than a few times as well Through it all though our poets never stopped singing For that I am gratefulWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper