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Asylum ; Poems
Searching for safe havens; wanting to cut loose. Trying to make peace with death, love and madness. Learning that we can wound and be wounded. Looking for solace and meaning through rage and confusion. Jerry Pinto’s debut collection of poems, Asylum, established him as a true original, a writer unafraid to be vulnerable, to take risks, to open the door and blunder into the world or let it sweep in. He travels, wrote Imtiaz Dharker,‘ the breathtaking spaces between madness, luminosity and quiet rebellion…This is a writer who draws precise lines of control, and then, with surprising tenderness, crosses them.
- GenresPoetry
54 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
3 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Pinto
78 books369 followersJerry Pinto is a Mumbai-based Indian writer of poetry, prose and children's fiction in English, as well as a journalist. His noted works include, Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (2006) which won the Best Book on Cinema Award at the 54th National Film Awards, Surviving Women (2000) and Asylum and Other Poems (2003). His first novel Em and The Big Hoom was published in 2012.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 28, 2021
"The fecund promise of fruit lures me.
Under the white dust of fat-soluble death:
A maroon glow, wet flesh, obscenely pitted seed.
I swallow the wizened brain of Satan.
Through the night I will be
The soil in which he takes root,
Coils around my spine.
My mouth is susurrant with leaves.
My sternum turns to wood.
I am alive with sap
And the mineral promise of water.
I am alive to the staccato music
Of hood and tail.
But I will be dead when you play on me."
// On Swallowing the Pit of a Peach
Pinto's poems have the quintessential feel of the Bombay scene. I can trace him to many of his contemporaries and predecessors, perhaps an aura that the city grants to all its verse spinners. It also ties in better with an older modern Indian English poetry, than perhaps what gets practiced by current poets. That might just be due to its age though. In any case, I was drawn to its simplicity and its softness, its long-abiding sensitivity to the slightest shifts in the human drama, a hair-breadth movement of mortal emotion.
His poetic sense is measured & carefully thought-out in its exploration of the hold of the past on us, the hollow houses we leave and inhabit, the sorrow and the madness. Words come quickly to the rescue then, strung together as a lasso, as a lifeline, an embodiment of one's hurts and wants. The poems are also about eternity and perpetuation, finitude and decay, maybe even quiet, prolonged transformation. For "Outside the window / The Sea, the sea", big enough and blue enough to be set adrift as the land recedes.
(I was sent a finished copy by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
Under the white dust of fat-soluble death:
A maroon glow, wet flesh, obscenely pitted seed.
I swallow the wizened brain of Satan.
Through the night I will be
The soil in which he takes root,
Coils around my spine.
My mouth is susurrant with leaves.
My sternum turns to wood.
I am alive with sap
And the mineral promise of water.
I am alive to the staccato music
Of hood and tail.
But I will be dead when you play on me."
// On Swallowing the Pit of a Peach
Pinto's poems have the quintessential feel of the Bombay scene. I can trace him to many of his contemporaries and predecessors, perhaps an aura that the city grants to all its verse spinners. It also ties in better with an older modern Indian English poetry, than perhaps what gets practiced by current poets. That might just be due to its age though. In any case, I was drawn to its simplicity and its softness, its long-abiding sensitivity to the slightest shifts in the human drama, a hair-breadth movement of mortal emotion.
His poetic sense is measured & carefully thought-out in its exploration of the hold of the past on us, the hollow houses we leave and inhabit, the sorrow and the madness. Words come quickly to the rescue then, strung together as a lasso, as a lifeline, an embodiment of one's hurts and wants. The poems are also about eternity and perpetuation, finitude and decay, maybe even quiet, prolonged transformation. For "Outside the window / The Sea, the sea", big enough and blue enough to be set adrift as the land recedes.
(I was sent a finished copy by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
September 10, 2021
A collection I will keep coming back to.
...their slime-scented kisses
send rot shivering through your timbers.
— Excerpt from Asylum by Jerry Pinto
What is a poem made of really? What if what a poem is made of is under disguise as a poem itself? And when I recognize that, I gently ask myself what emotions does the poem invoke in me? And to what degree do those emotions stay in my body & to what time? And then, slowly, with each poem, the attachment to this book grew.
When the sky screams, the blowtorch is wise.
In the calm, the encrusted stains, blood, rust,
Mock those decisions. What watches us?
Those holes we cut to still you, are those your eyes?
—Excerpt from the same poem.
I saw a sense of insanity in the poetry of Pinto, a kind that tries to convert itself into an allegorical confrontation. A kind that tries to make sense of itself. Is poetry what comes out when insanity tries to make sense of itself?
There were verses on rage written with rage. There were verses about neediness; one thing humankind is clung towards, like-
Bound by the need for breath
We lie on beds of foaming rubber.
But the room is filled with
The rhythm of blood and need of the story.
We lie quietly, listening.
—Excerpt from Cetacean Song
The imagery in the poem is abstract. Maybe my ability to imagine them has been bleak. Anyhow, they have managed to tickle a few nerves, the effect remains.
And I know that another body awaits me
And another, another...
Each with built-in state-of-the-art aches.
The choice of words is exciting to an extent and is certainly remarkable. I ate the poems with the most of me. Will you?
...their slime-scented kisses
send rot shivering through your timbers.
— Excerpt from Asylum by Jerry Pinto
What is a poem made of really? What if what a poem is made of is under disguise as a poem itself? And when I recognize that, I gently ask myself what emotions does the poem invoke in me? And to what degree do those emotions stay in my body & to what time? And then, slowly, with each poem, the attachment to this book grew.
When the sky screams, the blowtorch is wise.
In the calm, the encrusted stains, blood, rust,
Mock those decisions. What watches us?
Those holes we cut to still you, are those your eyes?
—Excerpt from the same poem.
I saw a sense of insanity in the poetry of Pinto, a kind that tries to convert itself into an allegorical confrontation. A kind that tries to make sense of itself. Is poetry what comes out when insanity tries to make sense of itself?
There were verses on rage written with rage. There were verses about neediness; one thing humankind is clung towards, like-
Bound by the need for breath
We lie on beds of foaming rubber.
But the room is filled with
The rhythm of blood and need of the story.
We lie quietly, listening.
—Excerpt from Cetacean Song
The imagery in the poem is abstract. Maybe my ability to imagine them has been bleak. Anyhow, they have managed to tickle a few nerves, the effect remains.
And I know that another body awaits me
And another, another...
Each with built-in state-of-the-art aches.
The choice of words is exciting to an extent and is certainly remarkable. I ate the poems with the most of me. Will you?
December 25, 2025
I have always had a mental block around poems - maybe it comes from all those years in school where your interpretations always seemed to either fall short of too exaggerated.
Jerry Pinto, an author who I love for writing one of the best books ever (Em and the big hoom), writes in these pages layered poems that have depth beyond what the words suggest. It even had words I had to look up! And yet, there is a soul that is so simple and beautiful.
I loved a few poems, one by the bedside of his mother and one on pigeons. All the other poems, I wish someone was explaining the beauty of it - it was beyond me to decipher.
A collection that did more to my book count than to my soul.
Jerry Pinto, an author who I love for writing one of the best books ever (Em and the big hoom), writes in these pages layered poems that have depth beyond what the words suggest. It even had words I had to look up! And yet, there is a soul that is so simple and beautiful.
I loved a few poems, one by the bedside of his mother and one on pigeons. All the other poems, I wish someone was explaining the beauty of it - it was beyond me to decipher.
A collection that did more to my book count than to my soul.
January 13, 2025
Asylum is a small collection of poetry by an Indian author named Jerry Pinto. It was his debut. He later goes on to write fiction, for which he won awards. These poems however just didn’t resonate with me, they were too abstract. The collection does have almost 4 stars on Goodreads, with many raving reviews.
Genre: Poetry
Genre: Poetry
April 25, 2025
Was searching for a poetry book that explores vulnerability as a theme. Stumbled across this one at a bookstore, did a quick browse through of a few poems. Read one titled Rictus. Rushed to the billing counter - I had found my best read of the year. Just completed the book, and the next thing I'm gonna do is tell all my friends to pick this up ASAP.
March 21, 2024
Debut poetry collection. Poetry on poetry, writing, rebellion of ink on paper, existence, death and quite a few abstract thoughts that i couldn't comprehend.
Though it's a small book, it needs more dissection as each sentence is loaded up.
Though it's a small book, it needs more dissection as each sentence is loaded up.
November 28, 2025
This was... okay. Some had really evocative depictions of people and places and things; while others were a little indecipherable. At least they were actual poems, though, and not Tumblr-esque two lines on a page. My favourites were Sleep, Rictus, and From Another Planet.
December 11, 2021
At Thirty
I thought I would grow used to this body.
Thirty years together and we've had it easier than some
(Discount a fracture or two, minus some teeth).
We should have struck a balance now;
Three decades is enough time to reconcile
The myopia and the clumsiness,
The hair receding where it ought to grow,
Sprouting cheerfully where it ought not.
I should be able to live in here now.
Now they tell me this is a new body:
Every cell is different, except for the brain.
All the old cells gone, sloughed off,
Recycled, born again.
So now I know why this body is a stranger
Unfamiliar in sudden mirrors,
Alien in old photographs.
And I know that another body awaits me
And another, another.
Each rebellious, each different, uncompromising,
Each with built-in state-of-the-art aches.
New each time, each pang new.
My body in name only
My body that refuses to settle down
My body that will not acknowledge me.
I thought I would grow used to this body.
Thirty years together and we've had it easier than some
(Discount a fracture or two, minus some teeth).
We should have struck a balance now;
Three decades is enough time to reconcile
The myopia and the clumsiness,
The hair receding where it ought to grow,
Sprouting cheerfully where it ought not.
I should be able to live in here now.
Now they tell me this is a new body:
Every cell is different, except for the brain.
All the old cells gone, sloughed off,
Recycled, born again.
So now I know why this body is a stranger
Unfamiliar in sudden mirrors,
Alien in old photographs.
And I know that another body awaits me
And another, another.
Each rebellious, each different, uncompromising,
Each with built-in state-of-the-art aches.
New each time, each pang new.
My body in name only
My body that refuses to settle down
My body that will not acknowledge me.
September 8, 2023
prema preetha gave this to me <3
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews