Mamina

Mamina is a delicate, poignant, and moving exploration of motherhood from poet Sangita Kalarickal. A fine debut. Bewitching, bubbling poetry like a warm cup of kehwa on a cold December day, sprinkled with crushed almond, saffron and cinnamon. It warms the heart, stirs the soul, bringing a smile to the lips, raising hands upwards, grateful for the presence of mothers, grandmothers and daughters in our lives. Short, succinct and sweet poetry which you want to sip, and sip again, like a poetic glutton. With her first published collection, Sangita Kalarickal has established herself as a potent creative force through poetry that bubbles from the wellspring of her heart. In Mamina, we come to know Mother as we have never known her. Between these covers, there is beauty, wisdom, joy, pain, and love-all woven together brilliantly with soft, caring words. Mamina, mamma, amma, mother, mãe, maa, ammee, mathair... the emotion, the same world over. Sangita connects us to this emotion in Mamina. A collection of eighteen poems narrated in free verse and Japanese poetry forms, vivid with language that sets the tone of tenderness and reflection, and expressed in impeccable style, Mamina is a book one would want to savor on a flight or on a rainy day with a hot cup of coffee. Magical circles of time fly around in her poems, waiting to be found, in concentric, lighted, elastic rays, stretching out in a child s slow crawl across the floor, over a sudden scent of jackfruit leaf spoons in Ammamma s congee... the vision of Mom in wisps of time in a mirror; and what do you find? Wrinkles and lines fade away in everlasting touch, in missed buses, may paths converge, overwriting shadowy tremors of pain and loss. A redeeming read of exquisite beauty. This wonderful chapbook is grounded in the matrilineal, and in the challenges and joys of becoming and then being a mother. Sangita Kalarickal s ability to craft strong haiku is clear throughout the collection, which also features free verse and hybrid forms.