The poems in this collection reflect an organic affinity with nature and undercurrents of emotions that go hand in hand. The title Subsongs has many connotations and it offers the flexibility of navigating different spectrums of understanding. Lit...

The poems in this collection reflect an organic affinity with nature and undercurrents of emotions that go hand in hand. The title Subsongs has many connotations and it offers the flexibility of navigating different spectrums of understanding. Literally, a subsong, in a bird's world, could mean a song that a juvenile bird sings before it learns to sing like other birds of its kind. It is similar to the babbling of human infants in the process of learning and socialization. A subsong speaks of imitation, originality, experimentation and creativity. The poems in this collection are spontaneous, curious and restless like the subsongs. Reading the poems in this collection is a dive into a private, serene world illuminated by the “moon glade,” “blinking fireflies,” “kids chasing butterflies with badminton rackets” and “throbbing lives basking in the evening hues, sporting life and death.” If you listen closely, you could hear the “close-beaked tremors, muted warbles, half-throated babbles, soft brushing of pebbles, tender notes of surprises, vocals mixed phrases, thrilling trills spiraling in soft moulds.” Love, a theme dealt in many of the poems, is a “tree sprouting from the prickly stubs when it's axed,” “a nonchalant sage professing dispassionate sermon” and “another name for delusion.” The core thoughts of the poems pursue an ideal where the free, democratic principles of the natural world exist organically alongside the human world, striving for peace, harmony and happiness.