Review by Samir Satam
Sadia Khan’s Patina cup is filled with an exotic blend of surrealism, mysticism stirred with a generous helping of wholesome heartbreak that is aromatic with longing.
Each poem is unique in its style and possesses a primitive passion that transforms the mundane into memorable. It tells a lot about the caliber of a poet when she artfully embraces sexuality rather than suppressing it by mincing words. And while being gloriously emotive about it, she manages to let other distinctive emotions surface in her poems.
Death is a recurring element in the folds of this collection and yet I am filled with wonder in the way Sadia treats it as a casual, day-to-day affair instead of letting it induce any melodramatic feelings in the reader. In that sense the poet enables the reader to rise to her own plane instead of letting her art plummet to levels of mediocrity that appeals to the masses. Here is a poet that dares to stay true to poetry instead of slogging to be understood. For this reason alone, ‘In My Patina Cup’ deserves respect.
A poem that starts on an abstract note:
“In my patina cup,
Plunges a dry brass moon,
Aglow…”
It goes on to create an intoxicated environment of yearning etched in an earthen imagery and takes the reader through a vast expanse of nothingness that engulfs everything there is and will be… What I mean by this can be found in an excerpt from continuation of above poem below:
“Where thirst-smeared are the mirrors
On the humid-dust tainted doors and windows…
Of petrichor, hushed
By doused in sweat, blouses
Of rustic smiles,
And untrodden wild, wet miles!”
As much as these poems are soul-searching and sometimes hopelessly romantic, Sadia has an instinctive flair to stop lending words to emotions and let the unsaid indulge in the art of expression. For example a poem that has a beautiful stanza that flows thus:
“Sketch me in your words, flowing sweet
Write my face, and a nose thus so neat
Then write my lips, and kiss them deep
Write my eyes — awakened from a sleep
And when it is time; if you ache to stop,
Thence, my artist, let ellipsis… there flop…”
Ends very effectively leaving a dense quilt of restlessness upon the reader:
“…I live…
In a hiatus!”
‘In My Patina Cup’ is one of those books you can go to bed with and can rise up in the morning to. It is intense yet soothing, touching yet comforting in its effect. The magic of poetry is in its full bloom in these pages.
Here is a book with a flaming heart that doesn’t shy away from expressing anything that feels inexpressible.
‘In My Patina Cup: A Collection of Poetry’ can be bought on Amazon:
