Where Do You Go Alone

by Pavana Reddy

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

- Carl Sagan, “Pale Blue Dot”

In 1977, Voyager I was sent into interstellar space on a mission to reach a star 17.6 light-years from Earth. Included on the spacecraft was the Golden Record, or planet Earth's musical "message in a bottle", consisting of sounds and images selected to represent the life and diversity of our planet. The music chosen to be on this interstellar mixtape was handpicked by Carl Sagan and includes the likes of Guan Pinghu, Louis Armstrong, and Blind Willie Johnson. When I first listened to this record, one particular song which stood out for me among the rest was written by a singer from a remote hilly village in the heart of Goa known as Kesarbai Kerkar – a woman whose legacy on Earth has literally "crumbled to dust”, while her voice still lives on far away among the stars.

Kesarbai's raga, "Jaat kahan ho, akeli gori" was launched into space the same year she died.

A billion years from now, when the Earth is nothing but dust, her voice will serve as a reminder among the debris:

The universe wastes nothing.
What is lost is never truly gone, it is taken back.
What we create now will live beyond our own years.
This grief is only temporary.

Divided into five chapters named after the different full moons, this book is meant to represent the cycles within each one of us.

Given the chance to do it all again, relive all the love, grief, joy and heartache of being alive—would you take it?

Eventually, we will all be embedded among the stars.

This is my "message in a bottle" to the universe.

— pavana reddy
pavanareddy.com

Genres: Poetry

342 pages, Paperback

Published April 10, 2019

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let’s talk poetry.

It’s beautiful and concise and poignant. But the amount of connection you have with various poems change change depending on your mood, time of life, or events happening around you. Poetry is something you should come back to over and over again.

This particular work focuses on the hurt and pain of relationships, the joy of finding new ones, and the bittersweetness of transplanting from one home to another.

At this point in my life, I had an appreciation for Reddy’s poetry, but not the level of connection I knew I could have had earlier in my life when I was experiencing more turmoil. I did mark a few poems with post-its that stuck out to me while reading, but the undertone for this book was sadness and healing, both of which I did not currently need.

However, if you need a friend in sadness or something to help promote the healing process, I definitely recommend this book!

[V Bruss · Rating 5 out of 5]

It becomes so abundantly clear that Pavana Reddy poured her soul into this poetry collection, and her story, just like the one of many women is being told in such a tender way. What particularly took her poetry to the next level is her division of the book into different moons and their relationship to the poems within them. Genius!

[Samuel Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving journey through loss, love, liberation, family, and renewal of one's identity. I enjoyed it, not for its tone, but for Reddy's masterful craftswomanship in her words and ideas. Felt like I would've given this five stars if I had read it 7 years ago, when I was undergoing my own heartbreaks, because she just knows how to speak to that so beautifully.

[Sonya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first fell in love Pavana's poetry since the I first saw them mysteriously floating around on Tumblr.

While I absolutely love the concept and artwork (that foreward made my heart flutter ugh), I didn't find this as visceral as Rangoli. I enjoyed the longer poems in this collection the most.

[Bruce Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was shipped to me by accident, so I read it.
I don’t usually read full blown poetry books, but I really enjoyed this….it was so heartbreaking, heartfelt, and beautiful and gloomy at times.

Maybe this book was not sent to me by accident 👀

[Vivek · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I really liked the concept and how she put it together, but ultimately found her first book of poetry much harder hitting.

[Aalxyah.J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, how I love Pavana Reddy's poetry. I was introduced to this book after reading her first release 'Rangoli' which I embraced lovingly. From following her Instagram for some time, I became engaged with her content and updated on this new release, a blend of her poems from 'Rangoli' and some new poems. This book cover is insanely beautiful and the contents read as a five-part journey: Wolf moon, Black moon, Blood moon, Harvest moon and Flower moon. Her work re-ignited my love for poetry as a tool to relax/understand my anxiety, through it's a connection to whatever I may be dealing with. From studying poems at school I already developed a keen passion to analyze poetry for more than it's surface value, however, I found Reddy's work particularly essential at a time where I felt without hope and drive. Her words spoke not as to a reader but as to a sister. This book showcased a more vulnerable side to her writing than it's counterpart (her first book), which was truly something I need in my own vulnerable stages. To end this review I'll add some of my all-time favourite poems by her that I even sometimes find myself reciting in corners of my head when needed as a breather or telling my friends about. Some of the poems are in full and others I've cut to lines that impacted me the most.

"You will swallow a thousand different names before you taste the meaning held within your own."

"We build words inside of our mouths only to swallow them
We create homes out of silences and live there."

"What language robbed a woman's no from her lips and left a man's yes in it's place"

"For I have never been able to find any outside of myself."

"Spines shaped by what has been forgiven but never forgotten. I broke myself to be alive, this is what forgiveness looks like."

"I wish in one direction but look in the other, for nothing I have ever wanted has come out the way I expected."

"Escape doesn't always mean running away, sometimes escape is simply making it back home"

"I don't want my past to be my story, I want to give the pen to the person I became in spite of it."

"Never rush to unfold the contents of your heart. Don't let them pick and name you before you have the chance to blossom."

[Tohko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pavana Reddy manages to capture the depth of emotion in a matter of lines, weaving in images of the sun, moon and stars. There are some beautiful and powerfully moving poems in this collection, however given the repetitive use of metaphors I would have condensed the selection to a tenth of what it is.