Author-photographer Buku Sarkar’s poetry collection ‘My Dead Flowers’, published by HarperCollins India, meanders across cities and themes. From Paris and New York to Calcutta, the poems traverse geographies as much as they do inner landscapes. Many speak about love, with all its passion and vulnerability, others turn inward in quiet reflection, while a few even brush against the presence of artificial intelligence. What remains a constant, however, is a current of deep, poignant emotion that runs through each piece, and pulls the reader to pause and look as much inwards as outwards.
One especially striking poem reflects on the unlikely love guru many of us have found in ChatGPT:
“I ask AI: What would life be without M in it?
It answers:
That depends – who is M to you?” she writes.
Meanwhile, ‘Turn the Turn’ delves into the rat race many of us find ourselves trapped in:
“Until you wake up years later
To realize you’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere —
Lost your way,
So you try and start again,
Or so you say.”
Then there’s ‘Lady at the Window’:
“Who are you,
Lady at the window?
Are you dancing your dreams
Or do you carry the world on your shoulders?”
A photographer as well, Sarkar pairs her poems with images that mirror their emotional undercurrents. They are quiet and vulnerable, urging you to slow down, to pause, to reflect.
In just 125 pages, Sarkar packs in much, but never too much. The collection, in its entirety, remains evocative, poignant, and deeply effective.
My Dead Flowers by Buku Sarkar
HarperCollins
Rs 499, Pp 125
