"Poetry can never be explained, it is very rarely factual. My poetry is a spill of my emotions and my feelings. The poet is often the only one who knows ‘exactly’ what his/her poem is about,” writes 13-year-old Rhea Cawsi Dhanbhoora in her Foreword to Poetry Through Time, the 100-page compilation of her first collection of poems.
"Inspired mainly by the beauty of nature,” the first of the 72 poems selected for this book is titled Sky At Night. The favorite of many poets, the subject of rain and grey clouds features among her poems too as does the enchantment of the popular hill station Lonavala.
Dhanbhoora: fledgling work
With nearly a dozen poems on love and friendship, Rhea writes, "Every time my mom or my dad wanted to gift each other a poem, I would quickly scribble one down.” War and peace are other topics that have preoccupied the young girl. In one of the interesting poems Tea with Peace?!she writes, "...War and hate, jealousy and undecided fate,/Is all that is left now,/In this town./How can we save it?/When all we do is break it,/Try to destroy,/People we employ,/And all that’s left,/Is a heavy chest./Doesn’t it seem like,/Eternity since,/We had tea with peace?!”
Using the medium of verse to express her thoughts "on the current events and my anguish at the sad state of the world today,” the budding poet clarifies, "Though the general idea of the poem can always be presumed, it can never definitely be set down. So...I assure you not every poem is what it seems to be and not every poem is written on personal experience!”
Dedicated "to all those who have helped and encouraged me through the years,” Rhea gives credit to Aunty Pilloo, the teacher who bared her latent passion for poetry, her parents for "they have never limited my creativity or changed ‘my creations’...never cut out lines or verses, only at times corrected my spellings!”
Her acute sense of observation and pathos surface in poems like Man where she writes, "Man’s the most abnormal thing,/God could think of making,/...He’s destroying fellow creations,/He’s throwing them away,/Lives are vanishing,/He doesn’t care,/He’s tired of hiding,/His true colors beneath the skin,/He’s showing himself now,/For what he truly is./A monster, a destroyer,/Flaming red with hate,/He’s the greatest mistake/God ever managed to create.”
Published in 2004, Poetry Through Time is published by English Edition Publishers and Distributors (India) Private Limited [5/10, 11, 105 Jogani Industrial Complex, V. N. Purav Marg, (Near ATI) Chunabhatti, Bombay 400022] and priced at Rs 125.
Parinaz M. Gandhi