What do you think?
Rate this book
Love without a story
Here are poems that celebrate an expanding kinship: of passion and friendship, mythic quest and modern-day longing, in a world animated by dialogue and dissent, delirium and silence. Circling themes of intimacy and time, they return to the urgency of conversation: that fragile bridge across the frozen attitudes that divide our world.
But at the heart of the collection is a deeper preoccupation, with those blurry places where humans might walk with gods, where the body might touch the beyond, where the enchanted might intersect effortlessly with the everyday. Where one stumbles upon what the poet simply calls ‘love without a story’.
But at the heart of the collection is a deeper preoccupation, with those blurry places where humans might walk with gods, where the body might touch the beyond, where the enchanted might intersect effortlessly with the everyday. Where one stumbles upon what the poet simply calls ‘love without a story’.
Hardcover
Published April 28, 2019
36 people are currently reading
236 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 11, 2020
I had been desperately looking to read a good poetry book to kick off my new year and I happened to stumble upon Love without a story by Arundhathi Subramaniam. A book I had never heard of and I writer I had never read before. And that’s my biggest regret. I absolutely love the poems. Her works has defined another class of poetry – refined, elegant, subtle yet simple. Her poems reek of honesty and longing stirring vivid emotions. I found quite a few which I absolutely loved and re-read.
The best part about this book is you can keep the notepad aside and not analyze it. Cuddle up in a blanket or curl up on the sofa and just read. Flow with those words, as you read passages about love, friendship, and devotion. Nothing intimidating about this set of poetry so anyone who’s found poetry “too intense” “too much” or “exhausting”, your welcome.
The best part about this book is you can keep the notepad aside and not analyze it. Cuddle up in a blanket or curl up on the sofa and just read. Flow with those words, as you read passages about love, friendship, and devotion. Nothing intimidating about this set of poetry so anyone who’s found poetry “too intense” “too much” or “exhausting”, your welcome.
April 5, 2020
"Let me follow river currents
warm with sun,
the ambling storylines
of green lotus stems
and wooden boats.
Let me be that tangle of moonbeam
and plankton
on a journey too pointless
to be pilgrimage,
floating, jamming,
just jetsamming."
RATING: 4.25/5
I was really impressed by Subramaniam's last poetry collection, I even reviewed it here a couple of months ago. I automatically had a lot of expectations out of this one when it was announced. Needless to say, she easily delivers on them all, quite magnificently too.
Subramaniam is a consummate poet armed with the ability to manipulate language with finesse and use it in startling ways. Deeply attuned with nature, spirituality, and myths, her writing is an exemplifies the rich literary traditions of India. It manages to fuse the traditional with the unconventional giving rise to verses which are quite capable of transforming the reader's view of things. The poems, first and foremost, are an ode to love and to all that it entails. It is a love without a reason, without a story - it just is. This love comes in various flavours and forms and for Subramaniam - all of them are valid and all of them are welcome. Whether it is among humans or the divine, requited or unrequited, temporary or permanent, she finds a proper place for them within this collection. And even as she deftly maps out uncharted territories, Subramaniam keeps on returning to her old explorations of passion and desire where mythic meets modern in brilliant verse.
warm with sun,
the ambling storylines
of green lotus stems
and wooden boats.
Let me be that tangle of moonbeam
and plankton
on a journey too pointless
to be pilgrimage,
floating, jamming,
just jetsamming."
RATING: 4.25/5
I was really impressed by Subramaniam's last poetry collection, I even reviewed it here a couple of months ago. I automatically had a lot of expectations out of this one when it was announced. Needless to say, she easily delivers on them all, quite magnificently too.
Subramaniam is a consummate poet armed with the ability to manipulate language with finesse and use it in startling ways. Deeply attuned with nature, spirituality, and myths, her writing is an exemplifies the rich literary traditions of India. It manages to fuse the traditional with the unconventional giving rise to verses which are quite capable of transforming the reader's view of things. The poems, first and foremost, are an ode to love and to all that it entails. It is a love without a reason, without a story - it just is. This love comes in various flavours and forms and for Subramaniam - all of them are valid and all of them are welcome. Whether it is among humans or the divine, requited or unrequited, temporary or permanent, she finds a proper place for them within this collection. And even as she deftly maps out uncharted territories, Subramaniam keeps on returning to her old explorations of passion and desire where mythic meets modern in brilliant verse.
September 7, 2019
The poetry by Arundhati grows on you. She unravels layers and layers of life, sometimes nostalgia through her poems. Will keep coming back to this book to relish and ponder on so many aspects of life through her poems.
A book for poetry lovers who would want poetry to marinate on thoughts, experience and be mesmerized by the author's wordplay and brilliance.
A book for poetry lovers who would want poetry to marinate on thoughts, experience and be mesmerized by the author's wordplay and brilliance.
September 15, 2019
Nostalgia, sense and feelings. All combined into one. Takes time to understand but convincingly deep in its own meaning. Loved it.
Below lines are just an example :-
"The rest of the world serves many masters – family, money, lovers, bosses, fame, power, money, money, in endless carousels – the crazy autopilot of samsara. But you, love, think only of me. Who’s the whore here?"
Below lines are just an example :-
"The rest of the world serves many masters – family, money, lovers, bosses, fame, power, money, money, in endless carousels – the crazy autopilot of samsara. But you, love, think only of me. Who’s the whore here?"
December 20, 2024
Meeting Yourself in Poems
Arundhati Subramaniam marries the magical and the myriad, monsoon and Mumbai, myth and metaphors in nearly every page of this majestic collection of poems. Like every night has its own soundtrack, each piece here has a harmony unique to its own. And every time you return to them, it makes minute invisible readjustments to perfectly fit your state of mind.
The first poem in the anthology begins with Eunice de Souza’s immortal line: “Best to meet in poems”. Where does one go from here, you’ll wonder? How does one ever better this? But Subrmaniam’s unerring sense of language, like a true performer, never even makes that attempt.
Her words envelope you in a melting pot of Bombay apartments and balmy Goa holidays, hibiscus silk saris, and adrak chai. Love Without a Story is about a world soaked in wistfulness, warmth, and remembering, with the Arabian Sea waiting by its side like a faithful witness to the days of sun and rain alike.
This is a sensory, lyrical journey into known territories but through paths only this particular poet at this specific point in time could have taken us on. On a rare hungover morning when I had opened the book at random and landed on a little poem about parents, it felt to me like the sentences are reaching out from the pages and cupping my face with tenderness sans any judgment.
The personal becomes the political in these pieces, but also the idyllic, the dramatic, the laconic, and the spiritual… like the hopeful whistle of a bird on a tree that you can listen to each morning but never spot. But isn’t that enough?
Arundhati Subramaniam marries the magical and the myriad, monsoon and Mumbai, myth and metaphors in nearly every page of this majestic collection of poems. Like every night has its own soundtrack, each piece here has a harmony unique to its own. And every time you return to them, it makes minute invisible readjustments to perfectly fit your state of mind.
The first poem in the anthology begins with Eunice de Souza’s immortal line: “Best to meet in poems”. Where does one go from here, you’ll wonder? How does one ever better this? But Subrmaniam’s unerring sense of language, like a true performer, never even makes that attempt.
Her words envelope you in a melting pot of Bombay apartments and balmy Goa holidays, hibiscus silk saris, and adrak chai. Love Without a Story is about a world soaked in wistfulness, warmth, and remembering, with the Arabian Sea waiting by its side like a faithful witness to the days of sun and rain alike.
This is a sensory, lyrical journey into known territories but through paths only this particular poet at this specific point in time could have taken us on. On a rare hungover morning when I had opened the book at random and landed on a little poem about parents, it felt to me like the sentences are reaching out from the pages and cupping my face with tenderness sans any judgment.
The personal becomes the political in these pieces, but also the idyllic, the dramatic, the laconic, and the spiritual… like the hopeful whistle of a bird on a tree that you can listen to each morning but never spot. But isn’t that enough?
November 15, 2019
When someone treats words like pearls and carefully chosen, lovingly collected baubles from travels within and without the psyche, when themes are so waterloose you swim far away from home and much deeper into it, and the subjects - queer even when non living, when poems repay space and time in more abundance than the reader can afford to give to a book of poetry in today's time - you know you are reading Arundhathi Subramaniam. If I were crazy enough to remember only one poem from this precious collection, it would be 'Mitti'. And one image that made me want to eat the page would be this one about conversations:
"Those that rose
like yeast and melted
like butter in Irani restaurants in Bombay."
"Those that rose
like yeast and melted
like butter in Irani restaurants in Bombay."
July 15, 2020
For lovers flatten
into photographs
photographs into
reminiscence
reminiscence
into quiet.
And then what's left?
Perhaps just the oldest thing in the world -
love without a story.
-Arundhati Subramanium
Isn't that beautiful? No poem in this collection failed to amaze me, especially Mitti. It's my favourite poem of the collection. Which is your favourite poem by her?
into photographs
photographs into
reminiscence
reminiscence
into quiet.
And then what's left?
Perhaps just the oldest thing in the world -
love without a story.
-Arundhati Subramanium
Isn't that beautiful? No poem in this collection failed to amaze me, especially Mitti. It's my favourite poem of the collection. Which is your favourite poem by her?
September 5, 2019
Short , simple and meaningful poetry
The poems are covering many areas, parents , gods , nature etc.,
They are short and easy read ! Some poems were good , some were average ! But definitely writing has to be appreciated
The poems are covering many areas, parents , gods , nature etc.,
They are short and easy read ! Some poems were good , some were average ! But definitely writing has to be appreciated
September 16, 2019
Beautiful.
September 30, 2019
Charming rhythm
All poems try to evoke vivid and visual imagery as well as contemplate the meaning of friends, parents, love, divinity and feminism.
All poems try to evoke vivid and visual imagery as well as contemplate the meaning of friends, parents, love, divinity and feminism.
January 2, 2026
Actual review: 4.5
I’m getting back into poetry these days and I picked this book up at Atta Galatta (for those familiar) while visiting the Bangalore Lit Fest.
The context is to inform the style of poetry one can expect from this.
I’ve never read Arundhati Subramaniam before but I enjoyed this work. She explored different facets of love in ways I certainly don’t think about it and there was a certain distance afforded to the reader from the experience - unlike some others where the reader is immersed and pulled into the moment whether they desire it or not.
I would recommend this to poetry lovers for sure - but also to those starting out, maybe start with something more accessible? I’m not sure one could simply dive into this and enjoy it for what it is.
All in all, a lovely read.
I’m getting back into poetry these days and I picked this book up at Atta Galatta (for those familiar) while visiting the Bangalore Lit Fest.
The context is to inform the style of poetry one can expect from this.
I’ve never read Arundhati Subramaniam before but I enjoyed this work. She explored different facets of love in ways I certainly don’t think about it and there was a certain distance afforded to the reader from the experience - unlike some others where the reader is immersed and pulled into the moment whether they desire it or not.
I would recommend this to poetry lovers for sure - but also to those starting out, maybe start with something more accessible? I’m not sure one could simply dive into this and enjoy it for what it is.
All in all, a lovely read.
April 12, 2020
Brilliant imagery. Celebration of love and nostalgia, of gods and the moon, of lovers and saints, of women and mud... poems that I will carry with me for a long time. As with any poetry collection, I will keep coming back to these poems for a long time. I can't choose a few poems and say that these are my favorite because every single poem is exquisite and has something unique to offer. Just the way she weaves words is an unanticipated surprise at every turn. Very very happy to have found her and Sharanya Manivannan this year. I am so used to reading authors. from the West, especially when it comes to poetry but for the first time, thanks to these two beautiful poets and Tishani Doshi, I keep turning to contemporary Indian women poets. What a treasure we have!
May 5, 2022
The most fascinating, and almost seducing, aspect of the book is the fluidity with which its lyricism flows among the territories of unpopular divinity of goddesses and forsaken humanity of humans.
The poems not only touches upon, but poignantly converse with ideas of friendship, familial ties, love and longing, while not losing grip on the urgency of protest and preoccupation.
Each and every poem must be consumed with silence of fantasy and assurance of intimacy.
The poems not only touches upon, but poignantly converse with ideas of friendship, familial ties, love and longing, while not losing grip on the urgency of protest and preoccupation.
Each and every poem must be consumed with silence of fantasy and assurance of intimacy.
June 15, 2020
Arundhathi is such a beautiful poet. Completely in love with all her poems, especially the one about friendships and parents. So natural. So so fluid. Definitely read her work if you enjoy poetry. I read this on a gloomy Sunday afternoon, and her poetry soaked me up with warmth and love. I read and re-read some poems just so I could live in them.
March 11, 2021
This is a collection of poetry, fermented and aged with love. A love that goes beyond just two individuals and walks the earth, misses friends and family, connects deeper with the gods. It's one you can keep going back to and still be amazed.
http://thewandererstrail.com/2021/03/...
http://thewandererstrail.com/2021/03/...
May 17, 2021
Arundhathi Subramaniam's "Love Without a Story" was filled with remarkably rich poetry. I could say that the poems were very good but it just wasn't for me. I found two or three poems from this book which were absolutely mind blowing, for me. Otherwise, no matter how good her poetry seemed, they just weren't for me and was very much different from my taste in poetry.
June 3, 2020
Suggested by my friend who is a poet
My friend who is a poet suggested me to read this. Good anthology. Short chapters, nice and crisp. I completed in one go.
My friend who is a poet suggested me to read this. Good anthology. Short chapters, nice and crisp. I completed in one go.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews