When the earth wakes up from its icy long slumber, it opens its eyes toward the carpet of blossoms, dandelions, roses, tulips and so many other flowers. Undoubtedly, earthlings have a special liking for this season because it soothes their eyes and warms their hearts the most. Margaret Wolfe Hungerford said, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, but this season, I presume appears beautiful in the eyes of every beholder. Spring has a whim about her, magic beyond our comprehension, the slightly cold dawns, the mildly warm noon to long evenings, filled with the nip of varied fragrance of varied flowers flowing in the breeze fills the soul much, and the cherry on the top is that divine singing of cuckoo all-day long. You feel immediately transported into a different world altogether, a different era where time stands still, and you feel Spring is the queen of seasons for sure.
As a poet I love spring so much, it has become the reason for myriad of my poems, and prose pieces and I particularly enjoy my leisure walks during the spring evenings when I witness so much beauty all around me. In fact, spring got etched into my mind from my carefree childhood days while we lived in Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (Prime Minister’s Museum now) where we were residing as part of my father’s working tenure as an Estate Manager. I used to roam around carelessly and not to forget all the liberty when office hours were over, the gates were closed, I would be playing and wandering into the labyrinth of those pathways where once Nehru, Indira Gandhi and even her grandchildren had played and walked on those paths too.
I felt blessed in those days as the gardens were filled with the choicest roses from around the world. They were not only mammoth-sized but of hues, I had not witnessed anywhere else. They were planted in rows and rows and taken care of by many gardeners in shifts. Every morning while going to school I would take some extra minutes standing beside those gardens, filling my naïve soul with that view as much as I could not, often believe the view in front of me to be true! Roses of black, chocolate hue, and their petals were like velvet. On some occasions, I plucked a few to present them to my class teachers. They would merrily take them, but in return, they advised me not to pluck out any flowers ever from its mother plant. I did that, I never plucked a flower ever afterward, but my love to touch them in my hands still remains. Such was the majesty of spring for me, a garden filled with huge roses in rows after rows as far as eyes could see. For me, I knew spring had come when I saw this sight around me.
But later it became my love, as spring brought me closer to my soulmate and I got hitched in the month of April itself. This season has a special place in my poetic heart as there are bouts of nostalgia every year when spring arrives in its full glory. Thus, I thought of dedicating an anthology to this season of love, the season of joy, merry-making, novelty and warmth by inviting other poets along to share their journey as well as what ‘Spring Love’ meant for them. And to my delight, they have opened their hearts out with their candid emotions through their verses.
Antrara Banerjee in her poem ‘Audacity’ has spoken bluntly of varied wavering emotions and desires that revive with spring. They also hurt like a bee sting, but to love needs courage and she has asked most eagerly whether the lover would be able to dare? Dr. Balesh Jindal has confessed that spring is a gateway to paradise and to many emotions she feels hurtful and holds grudges toward, she reminisces, but all her pain and morbidity is washed away with the balming effect of spring. Her words clearly show how much spring acts as an ointment to some of the rancour and stale emotions. Chetna Keer’s treatment of spring is the most inimitable one here in the book. She has made a number of interrogations to her most loved flower Gulmohar, whose cerise hue stands somewhere a culprit, somewhere a flower arising the passion among the lovers, a coyness of a young bride wrapped in a Kanjeevaram, its red more like the dot on a woman’s forehead depicting her womanhood, and a culprit red that brings havoc upon mother earth. With varied connotations and a multitude of metaphors, her spring has a different exhibit of emotions altogether, which I particularly liked while compiling this anthology.
While Deepak K Choudhary’s poem is a marvellous treat for the romantics at heart, the aged lovers who in the humdrum of life lose the myriad shades of love from their lives, through the imagery of birds the poet has reflected the deeper clandestine love hidden in the heart of two love birds. Only one has to see it to feel it better. Deepti Menon’s poem on the other hand, speaks eloquently about the transition that comes into nature, the foliage and upon the entire earth when it awakes from the deep slumber of the long wintry frost. The spilling metaphors, the imagery, the symbolic reference to the epic lovers Adam and Eve, and the expression that Spring is the harbinger of everything new, reminded me of these lines from Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘Early Spring’.
Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.
Daisy Bala’s poem is more like candid conversations that the protagonist is having in the eventful twilight of spring. The heroine seems to be waiting anxiously and desirously for her beloved, she is lost in the affinity of flowers, the moon night, the breeze and dripping her verses with crooning adjectives, similes and metaphors, her poem has given a lot of beauty to this book. Harshali Singh’s poetry takes one to the diatomic side of love where it seems to exist between the two truths of pain and remorse. Using the first-person narrative, she has wistfully depicted her protagonist’s morbid heart that doesn’t seem to rejoice with the arrival of spring, rather it seems more bound in the mundane waiting for the healing to come. A different take altogether where we can see that for some, spring might be the reason for joy, but for some it might become the pain itself which they silently suffer.
Indrani Chatterjee’s poem is another first-person prose poem, and she can be easily called a ‘metaphor queen’ with every line spilling a ton of those and with greater comfort. She has shown the season’s verdant effect on her lovelorn heart and how she awaits her beloved that she has personified in the form of ‘spring’. The poem clearly needs more than two rounds of reading to be deciphered precisely, yet my noble attempt here. Hope I was able to suffice!
Dr. Jaideep’s poem is a pure portrayal of spring slowly waking up from its deep slumber and stretching out its comatose limps lying motionless for long beneath the sheets of winter. With its arrival, nature has revived too, and somewhere the poet feels it is only the spring season that takes away his sorrow, his sadness each year with its gay arrival. Kamakshi Verma’s poem is clandestine in its essence, where it seems spring is the virgin season that waits like the protagonist to be touched. Her innocence lies in the hidden metaphors of her effervescent presence which she wants the lover to see and try to find that hidden smile, that happiness again. Kokila’s poem’s one reading, on the other hand took me straight to the hills. I was smelling the spring breeze all around me with all the visuals and imagery of her words coming alive in front of my eyes. The metaphors, the mention of valleys, different kinds of foliage and nature’s dance of spring, particularly the tone of her poem reminded me of ‘The Brook’ by Tennyson. The only difference his poem is in the first-person narrative.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley
Her poetry truly carries the spirit of spring or the ghost, if I may say so, that keeps coming back with its glory to haunt the earth each year.
Lolita Bhattacharya’s poem is the most perfect and simple poem on spring that gives us the idea that it’s a reminder that comes with every spring, that from nature to humans everything can have a rebirth and shed off those stale thoughts, emotions and make new promises and beginnings. This is what is required for us to live a new life in one birth itself, isn’t it?
Princess Lubna’s poem, I have to admit is a pure love poem where she has luxuriously compared her beloved with spring’s beauty and arrival. Heavy metaphors and similes will give you an exuberant treat of reading her piece. From falling in love, to being in love, the protagonist finds spring as the season which she keenly awaits as much for her lover, and spring makes this desire of her heart fulfilled. Moushumi Bhattacharjee however, has personified spring, making it a queen that had become the season of inspiration for poets like Rabindranath, Shelly etc., and in this book, it has become the inspiration for her as she has given it the beauty, the mysticism, the whims of a magical queen whose arrival is celebrated by the creative heads with vigour. The true beauty of spring is perhaps seen by the poets more and expressed best through words; wouldn’t you agree?
Coming to my poem, this decision I have to leave upon the readers, as I can’t review my own work, but the body of my poem is based on humor and love and I have symbolised gods and goddesses as commoners, as I feel this has given a sudden wittiness to my poem along with carrying deeper meaning into my words. You may decipher it in your own way. I would love to hear your feedback. However, a wonderful love anthem we get to witness in the love saga of Flora the Roman Goddess of flowers and spring and West Wind Zephyrus who when falls his eyes over her unparalleled beauty, becomes her ardent lover and for aions he waits for her to be found again. At last, she falls for his masculine looks, charms and kind nature and both are finally united for their undying love for each other. Here the poet has given a different ending as there is another version of Ovid which is also considered a myth that Zephyrus falls for Flora and seeks her to make his bride and when she rejects him, he destroys every flower on the earth. Nandita De has made a beautiful spring love poem with a happy ending that suits this book better, as we all love happy endings. Don’t we? Go on reading the full poem, you will all find this long poem an interesting take by the poet on an epic love saga of a Greek God falling for a Roman Goddess.
Nalini Kalra’s poem speaks as a beautiful message of spring for the earthlings, that not only the flora and fauna become like a painting on nature’s canvas that soothes the human eyes, but every spring comes with a learning that earth has seen myriad of springs and each one that goes by becomes history. Dr. Paromita’s poem holds the true essence of spring and she urges you to just lie down calmly and listen to the bounty of earth’s beauty in this effervescent season when children are also in love with nature. What I particularly loved in her poem is the imagery and how the protagonist feels joyful seeing her lover has returned home safely and, in his arms, only she is able to hear the whispering of the beauty of spring more. The magic that she has spelled is to find the glory of spring in its silent existence.
Rishi Kumar’s poem on the other hand, talks about the pangs and wretchedness his protagonist faced when the love of his life, Aashi was gone. Somehow with time, he found solace in the eternal love of the Divine and being lost in the youthful Springs of Nidhivan. This is a long narrative poem full of imagery, metaphors and a love saga that will refresh your heart. Riitu Tanejaa’s poem is pure bliss to read as it flows like a conversation that her protagonist is having with spring. She finds new hopes, inspirations, new promises and most of all, the energy to keep going in this harsh world which is surely filled with beauty and joy because of the spring. The candidness of this poem really captured my heart.
Rabia Wali’s poem speaks of the merry time in the month of Spring, May, as we usually connote this month as the arrival of Spring, but in her poem, she has spoken in layers and layers of clandestine emotions that are suppressed and are awakened by the arrival of the beloved and this fills the protagonist’s placid heart with joy. The mystery that I felt is, is it the spring as a lover or it’s the mortal lover whose arrival is the purveyor of Maytime? You decide!
Shakuntala Kanakagiri’s poem is a superlative portrayal of the ‘Spring Ritual’ on earth that happens every year on its arrival. She has given her poem a luxurious treatment of rhyming stanzas that talk about everything one witnesses in the spring season, the various birds that twitter, the myriad flowers that blossom and the joy and thrill that this season brings has been vividly exercised in her poetry.
In the end, it is the most brilliant narrative poem by Supriya Bansal, which personifies a flower as the seductress maiden and the bee as a desperate lover who is becoming allured toward her beauty. Her seducing gesture invites the bee towards her to drink her juices. Bee knows it will be the end of her life if he does so, but the ever-giving lavender wants to lose her virginity to the bee’s stinging love. Their honeyed unison is painful for one will die and it’s none other than the flower, yet she longs for this unison and nature witnesses this love story being repeated each spring. The bee is that eternal lover holding the truest love for her sweet lavender. A heartwarming love story where nature and fauna are personified.
This was my humble attempt to give you a petite glance of all the lovely spring poems written by multiple authors that you will read through this book and I couldn’t have thanked them enough had I not given some words of my understanding of their poems from my editorial desk. I’m sure you all might get a different flavour of each poem though, if you do, then having completed the journey this far, don’t forget to put up an honest review or even a little feedback on Amazon and Flipkart. I hope this book of ‘Spring Love Poems’ will fill up your hearts with pure joy that you find some reason to express that unexpressed love.
Warmly,
Editor & Publisher
Monalisa Joshi
Monalisa Joshi is a publisher, author, poet, writer, YouTuber and Graphic Book Designer. She runs her Contemporary Publishing House under the name Chrysanthemum Chronicles from New Delhi/ India and she has a literary platform with the same name on Facebook with many seasoned writers and poets who continuously write for the books, anthologies and journals that she brings out more often. Many of the unique and brilliant titles are in the making and pipeline, to be turned into physical books soon under her banner called -The Great Book Project Initiative.
‘Demigods Are Alive’, a collection of six long and short stories, which is her debut in fiction, has been brought out under her own banner only. Her recent Novel 'The Red Ganges' has been out on Amazon last Christmas. Apart from this, she has two poetry books to her credit from different publishing houses. Last year, she won the Critic Space Literary Award for being on the list of the top 100 best Indian authors. She herself confers many awards and prizes from her publishing house to many writers and poets every year for various virtual writing and literary events that she commences through her website and Facebook group page.