The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems – Review

The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems is a collection of 35 poems by the poet, or rather a new poet who has just made his official debut, Abhishek Goswami. The collection is fresh and it reflects the sentiments of the modern society which is often fragmented and in pieces rather than being a whole or complete. Most of the poems convey the idea of hopelessness and emptiness while some of them are also there which do the balancing act – the poems which reflect hope and pleasure and conviction and determination… to me, however, the collection seems a whole with so many of ideas coming together in verse – yes, one important thing about the collection by Abhishek is that he has taken care of his expression and poetical presentation very well – he seems more caring about rhyme at times but he has that ability to express even the ‘larger’ sums of thoughts in rather a simple way without being too bully to the readers who have lesser time now decoding the verse and that’s why we see the decline in the readership of poetry (some people believe that too obscure poetry seldom finds the readers).

The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems is a modern poetry collection, just to be frank about it! It offers and echoes the thoughts which are prevalent in the modern society, a reader cannot deny this fact. As a usual customer dealing in poetry, I found some of his poems too relevant – philosophically as well as in the terms of content.

“The Sun shines every day, whether we like or not,
It goes through its destined path, come what may.
Sometimes hiding behind clouds on a rainy day,
Other times high above the hills on a steamy day.”

To me, it echoes the lack of steadfast ambition or zeal in the modern society – we have become too hurried or we have just become too casual about life. The ideas of servitude and composed following of goals seem to have been forgotten and the same is reflected here – in a rather inspiring way by the poet Abhishek Goswami.

The poems like Anonymous Birthday Wish remind us of our long-forlorn humanity and it tells that we have gone too self-centred that seldom we find time to think about others. His poems also tend to be lingering over the spirituality and religious zone at times and most remarkable one is the poem The Tenth One which reminds us all that the modern redeemer will be among us very soon – the Kalki avatar.

To conclude, The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems is a poetry collection which simply conveys what needs to be conveyed to the modern readers of poetry. It also has some critical qualities which can be traced if one reads the poems with proper attention; however, the most important fact that I see is that the book (poetry collection) can be enjoyed by anyone and everyone who is interested in poetry! Collections like these are most welcome in the times when we are losing our interest in poetry – reading or writing alike! Kudos to Abhishek Goswami for his precious contribution!

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