Book Review of Jaydeep Sarangi's "The Half Confessions: Soulful Poems"

“Where the End Begins”: A Review Article on

Jaydeep Sarangi’s The Half Confession: Soulful Poems

Published by Penprints, 2024

ASIN: B0DLX41W2K

Price: 350 INR

Language: English, pp. 96

The Half Confession: Soulful Poems by Jaydeep Sarangi is a collection of seventy three poems on varying themes. Sarangi, called the “Bard on the Banks of Dulung”, strikes notes that echo from the physical to the spiritual space. He acknowledges- “my poems may lead me to a destined understanding with the muse residing somewhere” (Sarangi, 9). There is an element of living together and experiencing together—people, places, and happenings—that makes it as appealingly “individual” as strikingly “collective”. Sarangi takes the opportunity to exhibit and analyze his poetic spirit, kindled by his memory which witnesses, recollects, registers, and documents the physical world manifested through geography, history, myths, familial legacy, and personal experiences. He speaks without inhibitions that his poetic creations emanate from “history, half-dreams, and half-confessions” (Sarangi, 9). This book is dedicated to “The story of you and me” hinting at the anonymous, hidden, or universal bond between individuals, between the author and the reader, or perhaps a personal bond with someone.

“Speaking with My Unspoken Words” vibrates through the inner pain in the author, acknowledging and discarding the means of morality and also questioning them: “A good dip in holy water is a progress of the soul retiring from the mud” (13). Acquiring a Wordsworthian tone charged by mythic experience, it mulls over transcending unhappy memories and cleansing the soul. “Patterns on Stone” somewhat reflects the book's cover with the gradual diffusion of a leaf in stone. It builds on the effects of history on the personality of the poet. He says, “History has grown deep within me” mentioning Kailash, Anubis, Jericho, and Nazca (14). “Knocker-uppers” emphasizes the importance of time for everything—birth, life, everyday things, and death (15). “A Giant Tongue” proposes to meet someday “the empress of my heart” stretching for its craving from Amravati to Kalighat (16). “A Whiff of Love” further accentuates the confessional element through a metaphor of stone as a “solitary traveler”, finding out love and spending all – “Sighs, tears, prayers, and oaths” (17). “Thesaurus of My Wine Moments” creates a lexicographic and bibliographic representation of the flow of thoughts (18). “My Father's House” is a poem that combines childhood memories and parental aspirations with a sense of nostalgia (19).

“Falling Petals” resonates with the title of the book recalling a “covered face…through my half-confessions” (21). “One drop of red wine” sets an archaic tone envisioning Cleopatra, the Nile, Egypt and a hankering for red wine (22). “The half-confession”, the titular poem, is a reflection on the life and childhood memories of the poet, especially his father and ailing mother whom he thinks he will meet “for a slow silent walk near a chosen place” (25). “An Acre of Love” suggests the poet's need to renew his soul, waiting for an embrace, union, and acceptance (26). “No Sofa for Me, Please!” creates a drawing room image of writing poetry referring to Nemrut Mountains, Sundarbons, Teesta, Guntur, and Solan; invoking eastern Muse, Urania, and Calliope (27). “Waters on High” builds on love and waiting, referring to Antiquity, recalling figures King Menes, Nefertiti, and Rani Laxmibai (29). “That Other Swamp” creates a native image of Dulung and marshes (30). “Rain as You” is a short poem about remembering, wanting, and allowing, “Rain as you like” (31). “Oracle of the Rivers” connects ancient Rome to ancient Pompeii, Olympus, and Osiris to India with “Medha in the Vedas” (32). “Road to Pompeii” reflects on the attachment to the past and the roads that can lead to this renowned city (33).

“Amor Vincit Omnia” shows the intricate connection between words, emotions, and the art of writing poetry (34). “The Window Seduces My Love” creates a patient’s image of a poet wanting to write when on death bed (35). In “Rain on My Stories” the author ruminates on meeting stories casually in a quotidian life “secret prayers and cold spirits in rain” (39). “Alphabets of My Sky” describes the poet’s association with Murkiness who has loved the poet since “he loved alphabets” (40). “No Forgetting” focuses on the bonds of love, memory, and erasure (41). “Truths” in two stanzas highlights two realities of life and love (42). “Wheels of Stones” inscribes in its form the transcendental cycle of time represented celestially through the Sun and aesthetically through stone wheels in Konarka (43).

“The Long Separation” hints at reading “all letters when my image fades away”, reinstilling old memories (44). “Wildly Wilting Times” replicates the memories of good times lost in wear and tear of time, exhibiting patterns of “heat, cold, dry, peace and pain” (45). “Mapping the Mind” is an attempt to restore a person to life or a sense of self “after a long pain…old illness, and burning silences (46). “Watching” is written in a more prosaic form as an attempt to find the different possibilities that are hidden behind poems (47). “Where are the Rivers Gone?” recalls the Euphrates, the Nile, the Ganges, and the Beas, not only as inspiration for creativity but also as sources of wisdom (48). “Falling Beliefs” pens down in words the reception of viewing a “black and white picture” (49). “Your Moon Months” connects civilization, time, and life with the moon year and its shapes and movement. It mentions Uruk and Yamuna, and about silences traveling to many lands and “many myths searching for substances” (50). “A River to Die on” connects rivers to the hearts of poets. Sarangi points out the strong bond he shares with the rivers, be it the Indus, the Ganges, or the Dulung with whom he identifies himself and sees it as his “truest self” (51). “Expectations” stretches another memory of a poet sitting on a river bank waiting and recalling forgotten memories (52). “Your Sun is Never Old” transitions into old age and even in old age what keeps the poet close is writing (53). “Love You More” is about reestablishing the connection with love through writing (54). “From the Above” creates an image of some afterlife and separation where the poet can witness things from a long distance (55). “Museums” is a satire on the “death of a relation” left with marks of ignorance and forgetfulness (56). “Shadows of Today” revisits the childhood memories and the comforts it bring (57). “To Your Doors Only” contrasts the picture of living together in cold winters with that of separation in hot summers, suggesting to unite and if possible offer an apology (58).

“Genesis” recollects childhood memories and suggests a change in the poet from what he was earlier (59). “A Quiet Sunday” contradicts physical silence with the desire for communication that lies within (60). “Memory Box” highlights poets yearning to come out of old memories and unburdening the baggage of the past (61). “Meeting You on the Ghat” is a culmination of the circle of life. Sarangi writes life is a vessel “on a voyage through a watery bed” (72). “Your Poet” affirms the belief of the poet in faith, when inhalation and exhalation almost seem one “in unison” (73). “Chanting at Night” engages with incessant remembrance through “daily chores, hearts, and homes” (74). “A Defeated Bard” points out the helplessness of the poet as he disconnects from everything he has and keeps on waiting only for his fragmented body to be lifted by Tigris (75). “If You Ever Visit Jhargram” creates an image of the place and river Dulung (76). Arundhati Subramaniam refers to this aspect of the book as the “ebb and flow of the river” uniting “Jayadeep Sarangi’s restless, lurching verse fragments”.

“Roof of My Syllables” gallops through time and place, personal and universal existence, highlighting the significance of the roof for fisherwomen, farmers, the poet’s mother, and himself (86). “Untitled Hope” is a poem epistle to persuade the offended to come out of silence and ignorance and accept what has been familiar (87). “Don't Be Far Off” is an address to Subarnarekha, invoking a good poem, and lifting “mind and the heart into glory” (88). “Joy Forever” portrays the beauty of feminine or nature with silences, joys, and freshness (91). “Speaking Mists” shifts from foreign locale to native lands where the poet recollects walking on the streets (92). “The Map-maker” is a common phrase used in other poems in the book. The last poem is dedicated to Keki N. Daruwalla (93). John Thieme opines that the book “brings together personal love lyrics” drawn from “collective wisdom” making it a “verse autobiography.”

The book is filled with innumerable escapades of the poet’s mind interacting with the surroundings, deeper thoughts, and language of the soul. Sarangi enters into a conscious engagement with the art of writing, intertwining it with his memories. Largely, the book leaps into the past, recalling, silencing, and expressing. Sarangi emphatically declared history as a dominant motif in the poems. However, even history is not seen as a monolithic entity from his perspective. With different poems touching on the notes of the past, it reads into mythic, historical, and familial past. Similarly, cultural, political, personal, and geographical memories intersect during poetic creation. There is a constant yearning to retain the connection with the past, and nostalgia is familial, spatial, and personal.

The river marks a prominent metaphor for acquiring both a geographical and a psychological space. Mamang Dai calls it a collection “lifted by rivers into a slow silent walk”. Rivers as geographical entities become the source of life and poetic imagination. They channel and link many of the poems, so much so that, despite being different, the poems acquire a transcendental coherence. Rivers as “streams of consciousness” help the poet to feel, revisit, recollect, and express his inner thoughts. They further establish an innate connection with language, the art of writing, sentences, verses, and words. Most poems are not seen as a complete product but are in the process of becoming. Rugmani Prabhakar, a poet, writer, and social activist, categorizes Sarangi’s oeuvre in the Preface as “disjunctive or fragmentary poetry” aligning with modernist and postmodernist tendencies. Sarangi’s poetry is marked by its nonlinear and haphazard structure delving into the “ambiguity, complexity, and chaos of experience” (Prabhakar 10). Therefore, an incessant emphasis occurs on the state of halve—half as incomplete, or half as partially complete. The Half Confession: Soulful Poems makes a voyage through history, myth, and memory. It is a soul's journey through the heart, mind, and the phenomena of the world.

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About the Reviewer

Raj Gaurav Verma is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Modern European Languages at the University of Lucknow. Previously, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the Central University of Jammu. His published books include Diasporic Writings: Narratives across Space and Time (2020), Indian Women Writings: Introduction to Select Texts (2020), Reading Gandhi: Perspectives in the 21st Century (2022), Mahatma Gandhi: Essays on Life and Literature (2023), Mythological Fiction: An Introduction (2023), and Myths, Mythology and Mythological Narratives: Theories, Themes and Interpretations (2023). His areas of interest include Travel Writings, Translation Studies, Dalit Studies, Plant Humanities, and Indian Diasporic Writings.