Book: The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems
Author: Abhishek Goswami
Pages: 74
Published: 2017
Publisher: Notion Press

“We jump from one circle to the other,
From the smaller to the bigger one.
Like a series of concentric circles,
Life engulfs us all.”

Writes Abhishek Goswami in his poetry collection The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems and this is very true; moreover, the beautiful poetic expression makes these lines further wonderful packed with truth and displayed in a flash of the poetry. Well, I liked most of the poems in the collection very much – more than I have liked the recent poetry collections that I have read. Abhishek Goswami has that thing what we call the storytelling technique in verse and he has proved this in his long poem The Blue Book as well as the poems which narrate a kind of story from the past.

Abhishek has collected his themes for his poems (35 in number) from various sources and most of them have been represented beautifully in the form of poems. I recall the ultimate poem in his debut collection, The Runner, which is based on a Bengali song. This one narrates the story of his life – the messenger who runs with letters, news and messages from the people and for the people and in between, himself a person, he forgets that he is also a ‘someone’ who has to be somewhere among his own! The poem is wonderful; telling the importance of steadfast duty in life, The Runner will leave people rendering emotional sympathy for the person being told about!

The Desert of Life is about the ‘misery’ that this life is and many poets have told it in their distinct ways. Abhishek has his own ways. He talks about the life and a usual course that we take… sometimes, a little deviation does help and compels us further. He has used the images of pyramids and desert and a journey wonderfully.

Sydney’s Destiny is a short and humorous poem which you will instantly enjoy! It tells us the dismay and uncertainty the life is!

In a nutshell, the poems by Abhishek Goswami is there for us to enjoy and share and it comes in his debut collection of poems – The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems. Melancholy and happiness, doubt and faith, science and history… he has tried to present an amalgam of all to his readers and he has done a fair job nonetheless! You will like reading his verse and you should read this collection if you love reading poetry and keeping an eye on what’s going on in this field these days… below is the link where you can buy this book online (from Amazon India):

The Lonely Drummer and Other Poems: Buy Online: Amazon

review by Ravi Kumar