When I was invited to write this Foreword, I was reminded of the observations of Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771) on the authenticity of true poetry. He asked, is it from the head? Or is it from the heart? No, he stated. ‘Genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul.’
This extraordinary anthology of poetical works by Dr. Sigma Sathish takes the reader into the very fabric of what it is to be a woman. All thoughts of nationality, creed and education fall away, and we are left with the bare essentials of feminine existence – innocence, hope, love, intimacy, betrayal, sadness, pain, and ultimate loss. Some of the verses are lyrical and hark back to an idealistic past where all seems eternally perfect. Others are raw, challenging and desperately modern. We meet a rich cast of characters – a triumphant but doomed Cleopatra, a psychopath in the world of calculations, a confident woman walking through the silent path of life’s reality, and another knitting a million nameless dreams. We are confronted by questions of miserly minds, motherless daughters, the destruction wrought by mutual passion, triumph blended with defeat, and the monument of love constructed from desire. And we are stripped bare by uncompromising truth and naked honesty.
These poems are like chameleons. You read, and you think you have absorbed what the poet has to say. But, turn around, face another way, and dwell, briefly, on your own thoughts. Then, return to the page and read again. It is of a different hue, the voice is altered, changes reveal themselves and we, in turn, are changed.
Here is a window on the soul of womanhood. Here is wisdom. Here is respectful reflection. Here is knowing.
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