About Sanober Khan
Sanober Khan is a Mumbai-based poet and freelance writer. Her work has been published in various journals, including the Taj Mahal Review and the First Literary Review-East.
She has written three collections of free verse poems – A touch, a tear, a tempest, Turquoise Silence and A Thousand Flamingos.
In 2012, her first book ‘A touch, a tear, a tempest‘ was nominated for the Muse India National Literary Awards. She enjoys reading poetry from around the globe as much as she enjoys writing them.
I have read Turquoise Silence, which is the only book available on Kindle. Read my first attempt at reviewing poetry below.
Before that let’s spend a couple of minutes to understand what free-verse poems are and what inspires the poet.
What are Free Verse Poems?
Free verse is an open form of poetry which in its modern form arose through the French vers libre form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Read more about this poetry form with a few examples here.
Thoughts on Poetry by Sanober Khan
In an interview published on cyberwit.net she expressed her thoughts on poetry. Read the entire interview here.
Importance of poetry
Poems are important moments that would otherwise be lost in time. It is important as a need for personal expression, and also as a way of honouring what brings joy and sorrow. Without it, so much beauty of the world would go unnoticed.
Inspiration to Write Poetry
Beauty, sadness, and all things unusual. Sometimes it could be a beautiful line from a novel I’m reading, a song, or other people’s poetry. I’m a keen observer and very intuitive, I spend a lot of time alone absorbed in my own thoughts. It’s a trademark of every poet to see beauty in the most ordinary things.
Turquoise Silence Book Review
Turquoise Silence by Sanober Khan is a collection of free verse poems that encapsulate the poet’s most heartfelt emotions about life.
The poet’s eloquently written free-verse poems transport you into a world full of emotions and feelings, love and longing, relationships and nostalgia, and sadness.
These emotions beautifully interlaced with natural phenomena of Indian monsoons, the mists of winter, the scents of the sea, the dance of day and night, and the changing seasons paint vivid imagery on your mind’s canvas like a watercolour coming to life — the rich metaphors like ‘nostalgia fogging up the windows’ pull you in and touch your soul.
‘They speak of moments that sweep our breath away, of beauty that bewitches the heart, of people, memories, sights, sounds, and smells that awaken a sense of wonder and wistfulness.’
The poems capture the fleeting beauty of the humdrum moments of daily living that are ‘simply passing… like my name upon time’s misty lips.’ The verses, mostly about commonplace events and things, make it easy to relate to and accessible. Folks like you and me will find it easy to appreciate the meaning of these poems and the feelings they evoke.
The poems capture life in and around Mumbai in India, and the poet’s fondness for Khandala, a hill station near Mumbai, is quite apparent when she says in her poem The Good Times (Memories of Khandala)
‘savoured the long drive to Sunny’s dhaba… to binge on butter-bathed garlic naans and chicken tikka’s, sarson ka saags, and lassi’s’
The poet, a sensitive soul, goes on to say,
‘it saddens me today for we couldn’t hang on for those memories are now just like these little kittens, I hold in my hands those can be kissed, and treasured but not held too tightly.‘
References to coffee (some delicious coffee-flavoured loneliness?), chocolate (in the deep chocolate-rich, songster’s voice), and ice-cream (i could welcome you with the impatience, of a melting ice cream) find a pride’s place in the poems.
If you like poetry, and particularly if you haven’t read poetry before, I recommend you start with this book, which is like ‘reveries of warm tea for the melancholy heart’ and ‘the balm of poetry for the aching soul.’
Turquoise Silence Poems
A few excerpts from the poems to whet your appetite.
When poetry finds my heart I am suddenly the empress of the world…
I stream through silence ripple into whispers, and swell into a song…
…life continually flows through my fingertips, like fortune through a talisman…
I am infinitely yearning, brimming…overflowing, in words and I discover, it’s another way for me…to be in tears…
From the poem ‘Poetry in my Heart’
They have been whispered… for centuries, and handed down…generations endorsed by sunrises, sunsets and embodied under thunderstorms fruited on winter trees… and chanted by chocolates, forested… by faith those same words… now resounding…in my ear, … Don’t lose heart..
From the poem ‘Those Words’
It’s different the rain at 4 am purer… somehow more tender-hearted..
…with the sky… dunking its greyness into the cup of me, whipping up inordinate amounts, of melancholia…
…because some things, sometimes aren’t ours to hold, but just beautiful to listen to.
From the poem ‘The Rain at 4AM’
It would be best to term me as the ungrateful one, a terminal grouch, hopelessly incurable…
…for daddy won’t always be strong enough to do a thousand crunches every day, and Princes won’t always be all that charming, for I won’t always be lucky to make sure everyone’s safely tucked away for the night for all I can really do is, stand here in September’s rain, savoring… soaking it all in.. slipping, and simply holding on to poetry, for dear life.
From the poem ‘Ungrateful’
Turquoise Silence Book Preview
A Thousand Flamingos Poems
Sometimes I think,
I need a spare heart to feel
all the things I feel.
The splendid thing
about falling apart
silently…
is that
you can start over
as many times
as you like.
May your love for me be
like
the scent of the evening sea
drifting in
through a quiet window
so i do not have to run
or chase or fall
… to feel you
all i have to do
is
breathe.
a flower knows, when its butterfly will return,
and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand;
but now it hurts, to watch you leave so soon,
when I don’t know, if you will ever come back.
funny how our hearts
were designed
to love
so fiercely.
but break
ever so gently.
Words
are powerful
forces of nature.
they are destruction.
they are nourishment.
they are flesh.
they are water.
they are flowers
and bone.
they burn. they cleanse
they erase. they etch.
they can either
leave you
feeling
homeless
or brimming
with home.
Other Poems by Sanober Khan
In a world full of temporary things you are a perpetual feeling
This is one my favourites.
in a world
full of
temporary things
you are
a perpetual
feeling.
Life is a fleeting victory over entropy, which is the tendency of all things to move from order to disorder – a spanking new car rusts if not maintained and an empty room gathers dust. Everything arises from nothingness and, after living for a brief time, goes back into nothingness.
Through these powerful words the poet is highlighting the power of human relationships. These relationships bear the meaning of life and provides a sense of belonging-ness in an otherwise barren universe.
The power and potential of human contact are brought out clearly in the words below.
your hand
touching mine.
this is how
galaxies
collide.
even
in the loneliest moments
i have been there
for myself.
the saddest thing is to be
a minute to someone,
when you’ve made them your eternity.
my mother
is pure radiance.
she is the sun
i can touch
and kiss
and hold
without
getting burnt.
To fall in love with someone’s thoughts –
the most intimate, splendid romance.
Not words.
nor laughter.
but rather someone
who will fall in love
with your silence.
Other Books by Sanober Khan
A Thousand Flamingos
India | International
A Touch, a Tear, a Tempest
India | International
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Not words.
nor laughter.
but rather someone
who will fall in love
with your silence..
No more words one must lose to admir the thought u have spoken,
thus let see and understand, Silence in her full beauty of unfolding,
Only silence and The one chosen by silence to communicate without words, just as said with a little reframing….
stand here in September’s rain, savoring… soaking it all in.. slipping, and simply holding on to fleeting beauty, for dear life.