Book – Arc Asylum by Prateek Joshi
Genre – Poetry

Asylum is usually associated with mental health and this collection of prose poetry, Arc Asylum by Prateek Joshi is a lot moony.

The book is short and quick read. It is divided into five sections. However, to me what mattered most were the words, the feeling, the recurring themes sowed in the poems. It was dark and dreamlike simultaneously. These thoughts maybe obscure but are still quite definite. These are born out of deepest recesses of the poet’s mind. Simply put, if an abstract painting were words it would look like this. These verses felt like stream of consciousness. And hence for me the sections blurred into one another.

“Lost Vapors of yesterday are the sole reasons I stay -“

“Gloom has become the day’s routine, a nuance.”

“In the end, I have no one to forgive, and everything is about forgetting.”

“Tomorrow, I will set ablaze the wretched silence. For months, I have spoken to no one. The anxiousness has left a stub upon my imagination. I wander in my loneliness, aloof. It swears to drain me, trading off almost any sense. Whatever left is stale and kindles me to bury my origins before I can obtain any meaning.”

In these poems you will find hurt, hope, longing and loneliness making itself evident throughout. There’s also a mystical tilt to these verses which I loved. Memories, past, anxiousness are other aspects that are prominently present in the work. Leitmotifs of moon and autumn allude to the spiritless life that poet is trying to sketch throughout this book.

All-in-all, Arc Asylum is a rare poetry collection, the verses of which resonate, stun as well as sting you. There’s an uncanny spark in them that’s alluring. And If you love reading poetry then you will definitely like this book.

Last word – Prose poetries in Arc Asylum by Prateek Joshi are hauntingly beautiful.

To buy this book, pls click - ArcAsylum

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