Jabberwocky Reviews

15: Grief Is Power by amaranthinepoetry

@amaranthinepoetry, Grief Is Power

"An electrifying collection of essays on writing, obsession, inspiration, and humanity from Dayal Punjabi (Penguin India). The writer pokes questions at our fantasized version of romantic love in "A Drug And A Dream," while he probes the depths of insanity of a writer in "An Abnormal State Of Mind."

All in all, in Grief Is Power, the writer explores the boundaries of grief in several forms and channels and how it manages to mold us into the people we become today."

I believe this is the first collection of essays I've reviewed, which is a refreshing change of pace. I'm not going to provide a rating at the end because it's like comparing apples to oranges, but I obviously can still give you feedback. I just don't think it would be a fair comparison.

I think it's odd to call out specific essays in your blurb as opposed to unifying principles throughout the essay collection, unless you think these are the most significant ones in the collection. The first sentence does a better job of introducing to me what you're going to be writing about in the essay collection, and keep in mind this is a blurb, not the introduction of a critical essay you're writing about your own work: summary phrases like "all in all" don't belong here.

Your essays are tonally and stylistically consistent: they're first-person, meditative, often with a focus on writing (you mention Sylvia Plath and Oscar Wilde, for instance). You also have allusions, which I appreciate; I recall one line where you talked about embodying hope with feathers, a reference to Dickinson. In particular, I appreciated the sections that focused on the process of writing itself, for instance the anecdote about having to write an action that takes two seconds in two hundred words—undoubtedly a difficult task.

I would say these are the strongest essays in the collection, those that focused on that theme. I think it's material you're more comfortable writing about, or that you had a better idea about how to approach. Some of the more metaphorical ones—for instance, the first essay—lacked this clarity of theme I appreciated in the others. The prose used felt lofty without truly conveying a message, as I believe essays should. There should be an artistry inherent in the structure of an essay, certainly, but it can't come at the expense of a guiding train of thought. With a more poetic form, this becomes less of a concern, but here we're writing essays. These weaker essays had more grammatical mistakes or sentences that are technically correct but feel inarticulate.

You have some strong ideas you wish to convey, and like I said before, I think you have more of a natural affinity toward writing about the writing process or sharing your personal anecdotes than living in the realm of the metaphorical; "The Grief Of Translation" is one essay where you hit more of the right notes. I would encourage you to think about what made these essays easier to follow and your ideas come through more cleanly. Great work.