NEW DELHI LOVE SONGS

by Michael Creighton

‘In these whimsical, deeply affectionate poems, New Delhi is both context and protagonist, alive in its dust, smog and everydayness, in the vibrant colour of the first lychees of the season, in the mysteries that lie between “city and sprawl”. The city finds an ardent archivist in Michael Creighton—one who stoutly keeps the faith that “warm rains” will always “come to clear the dust”. Suffused by rare tenderness, these poems return through the welter of streets and residences to an address that remains at the abiding centre of this book—the place that the poet terms “the place I imagine my heart to be”.’—Arundhathi Subramaniam
‘New Delhi Love Songs is a collection abounding with shakarkandiwalas, jasmine-sellers, FM radios and cyclists, the Ghaziabad flower market and Moolchand flyover; the Delhi all around us, the Delhi of “your flesh, your seeds, / your skin”, of “sweat and soil / mixed with clover, sun and wind”. Unusual, deeply affecting in their attentiveness to life that seldom makes headlines, these poems reinforce the skeins of humanity that sustain us. They are tender and droll—two qualities we desperately need, in the capital but also elsewhere—yet steadfast in their eschewal of easy sentimentality and facile observations. New Delhi Love Songs makes the heart ache; but also sing, from time to time, for this is where “even a dead river looks lovely”.’ —Karthika Nair

Michael Creighton is a middle school teacher and library movement activist in New Delhi. This is his first book.

Genres: Poetry

136 pages, Hardcover

Published December 6, 2017

Reviews

[Geetika · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Humne maana ki dakkan mein hai bahut qadre sukhan;
Kaun jaaye Zauq par Dilli ki galiyan chhod kar."
-Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq


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🌾🔷New Delhi Love Songs🔷🌾 Poems

✒️By Michael Creighton

🏡Home is where the ❤️heart is. And in this case, Delhi hai meri jaan.🫶

The book is an eclectic collection of poems, many are love songs for Delhi. They speak of the cosmopolitan culture of a big 🏙️metropolis like Delhi, a home to the Delhite and migrant labour alike. The juxtaposition of things to love about the city and its beauty, seasons and seasonal fruits and the not-lovable ones like the dead river Yamuna, haze, smoke and pollution, winter fog, the poignant ironies of life in shacks and high rises is affecting. There are acute observations of the author's travel and living in Delhi and beyond in 🇮🇳India.

His honesty is touching. The themes of the poems include ❤️love, romance, devotion in love, loss and lament.

The poetry is free verse but it has rhythm. There is use of vivid sensual description, 🤌unique metaphors like 'fireworks hanging above him in the sky like burst pomegranates' and personification in the poetry.

The moods of the poems are myriad- ❤️‍🔥sensuous, 🫂compassionate, whimsical and 😇hopeful.

The book cover(winter 🌾wheat harvest) is elegant and 🎨artistic. The book is 👌well-edited.

My 💙favorites are New Delhi Love Songs, Tremor, Ode to Guava, Wish and Scattered.

Remember, "You can have more than one home. You can carry your roots with you, and decide where they grow."- Henning Mankell

[Antonia]

I’ve been familiar with Michael Creighton’s poetry for years, through various online venues, and have long been waiting for his debut collection. New Delhi Love Songs was worth the wait and I can’t praise it enough. I loved being immersed in the world of New Delhi (where Creighton, an Oregon native, has lived for many years). It’s dirty and dusty and hot and yet Creighton, with his poet’s eye and graceful language, shows us a city full of myriad wonders: the South Delhi Roadside at 8 a.m.; the jungle park; the Rajdhani Express; the rubber farmer; the mango popslicle seller, the old woman in front of the petrol pump. . . . and so many more wonderful portraits. And there are love poems, yes — to the city and to a beloved whose gentle spirit pervades this collection like a guiding muse. Creighton is so observant and so adept at capturing what he sees. The smallest moments take on significance, grace, and meaning. I will read (indeed, I have read!) these poems again and again.

Here’s just one of my many favorites, which speaks to me on so many levels — including the poet.

An Old Woman
After Kolatkar

There’s a purpose behind our choosing
which stories we conjure or board,
like this train rushing south through the flatlands,

or the bus we pass heading north.
I’m only a common magician,
hiding balls under fast-moving cups:

you’ll see what I choose to show you;
my tools are omission and flux.
The point’s not the watching or telling,

but the struggle to see and to touch.
What’s under the cup I’m not showing?
I can’t say, but I’m sure of this much:

I have seen the temple walls fracture
and boulders break into sand.
I have heard the falling sky’s clatter;

I’m reduced to small change in her hand.

[Arjun · Rating 4 out of 5]

A captivating journey into the depths of romance. The author skillfully weaves a tale of love and longing, evoking tender emotions that resonate with the heart. The vivid imagery transports readers to the enchanting streets of New Delhi. However, amidst the beauty lies a drawback. Some metaphors tend to be perplexing, interrupting the flow of the narrative. Nevertheless, this book is a poetic ode to love, perfect for the incurable romantics.

[Divya Nambiar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Name of the book: New Delhi Love Songs
Name of the Author: Michael Creighton
Name of the publisher: Speaking Tiger
Price: Rs. 299
Pages: 122
ISBN: 978-93-86702-78-4
e- book available

The review can also be found here: http://freepressjournal.in/weekend/ne...

A quaint piece of art that subtly dances in the reader’s mind and makes a place in her heart, refusing to let the charms of Delhi, the gentle scent of loss, the gust of summer wind, the sense of longing and so much more fade, for a long time.
A middle school teacher and library movement activist in New Delhi, this is Michael Creighton’s first book. As a reader, it looked to the reviewer like an evolving poet’s work. There were some poems that left the reviewer aghast. But so addictive were some others that it did not let the reviewer put the book down. Little surprise then that the book was savoured in a single day, with the aftertaste remaining for a long time.
Around 75 poems are grouped under different sections namely New Delhi Love Songs, On the Badarpur Border, Circle, Intoxicated and Garhwal. The cover page is a premonition of things to come in the pages that follow. There is a gentleness in it. A gentle breeze rustling the leaves, flowers that look like sea horses swaying along or are they ready to take flight? It displays possibilities that are beyond the imagination of the mortal beings. And yet, these possibilities are rooted – probably meaning that nothing is impossible if we give a chance to the refreshing breeze that blows even over a ground where a funeral pyre has lost the last of the amber glow and turned to grey ash.
The facile descriptions are worth experiencing. For example, in Bend, the poet not just paints a picture of Indian Railways but also makes the reader live it.
‘By the bend at Bina junction,
We are twelve in a space
Meant for eight’

The sounds, sights and smells drift in and lull the reader into a deeper sense of being. The whiff of ‘gentle scent of loss in every gust of summer wind’ might have gone unnoticed if not for the poet’s charming poem Scent. An event as gory as the Gujarat riots has been spoken of in a few words and yet they leave so much more to be thought about –

‘The squirrel my son raised
with a dropper and soft fruit
walks away in the mouth of a cat.’

The immense sense of change – of lives being shattered – have been described so gently and yet so powerful has been the impact.

Hinge gave the reviewer an entirely new perspective. It tugs at the heart strings and makes one think about moments that are fulcrums on which ‘a whole world swings.’

In Brother, there was a line that caught the reviewer’s breath,

‘You asked me: how would longing feel,
Without a word to hold it?’

100 feet down and dry has a line – ‘high walls wreathed in sharp wire’. That’s what readers need to be wary about. As we turn into robots with a schedule to follow, a routine that we fall into and a head that at times tries to process more than we actually want it to, this book is a calming tonic. It soothes the marks left by sharp wires on our beings.

These and many more such gems await the reader in New Delhi Love Songs. However, some poems have left the reader baffled. It made her wonder whether those poems too were composed by the same poet who rolled out some gems in the book. Probably it is the reader’s block trying to knock on her door. She might open it but not before she re-reads the ones that baffled her. And probably then, the poems would make more sense. If not, there already is a collection to treasure for a long time.

- Divya Nambiar (https://critiquedontcriticize.blogspo...)

[Annie Zaidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, sensitive collection of poems that manage to be devoted to the city even as they look closely at the lives of its people. These are difficult lives, and the poet does not attempt to romanticize or gloss over what he sees, but he does see with empathy and finds love in rare corners.

[Anna Citrino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tender, moving, and beautiful writing. If you haven't yet read Michael Creighton's New Delhi Love Songs, I highly recommend it. These are poems you can read, keep beside you, and return to again and again.