‘In Memoriam’: The Poet’s Guide to Grief and a Must-Read for All Those Who’ve Loved and Lost
Krupaharini M
Loss, suffering, and death tallies entered the everyday vocabulary of COVID news and dinner table conversations. In this desensitized world, Mafazah Sharafuddin’s ‘In Memoriam’, with a poem by the same name as its headliner, comes as an enclave that wombs each of us to share the burden of these dark times. The poet is an enthusiastic final-year student of Journalism, Psychology, and English.
With a staggering span of forty poems, this anthology published by The Alcove Publishers has a genealogy that sets it apart from the plethora of books being published every minute. What makes this anthology one-of-its-kind is that Mafazah’s experimental artwork, and not just poetry, is scattered across its pages. This artwork has traveled a long way to the pages of the anthology, from the ink of her pen onto the cursor of her computer.
Candied words and ornamental language would not grasp the authenticity of emotions explored by this poet. The poetry and art in this anthology is grotesque, in-your-face, shocking, and helplessly black-and-white, just as the pandemic has been. Her works have the air of critically acclaimed composition, making ‘In Memoriam’ an archive of groundbreaking originality.
This visual entry into her world-building is a sought-after experience after the success of her first anthology, ‘Labyrinth of Emotions’, which she got published at the age of sixteen.
The poet shed any illusions of normalcy at the threshold to compile this book. To explore the erratic waves of emotions and paper cuts of the pandemic, the poet and artiste embrace the abnormal and break patterns of language and art. After all, would rule-obeying, syntactical art or poetry do justice to the perils of the pandemic generation? So, as the poet eloquently puts it, “The world falls apart, and all I can do is tell its story”. This anthology, then, is as much our stories, as it is hers.
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Three of family killed in car crash in Chitradurga
Chitradurga(PTI): Three members of a family, including two boys died, and three others were injured allegedly after their speeding car flipped on the road in this district, police said on Wednesday.
The accident that occurred on Tuesday morning on NH-150 A was caught on CCTV camera. In the video, the car could be seen hitting the divider and flipping at least 10 times non-stop.
Preliminary inquiry revealed that the driver of the speeding car allegedly lost control and crashed into the divider following which the vehicle flipped at least 10 times resulting in death of Moula Abdul (35) who was driving it and his two sons, they said.
The injured were admitted to the hospital for treatment.
The family, hailing from Yadgiri district, was traveling from Bengaluru to their native place when the mishap occurred, police said, adding further investigation is underway.
