Bureaucrat Mukul Kumar releases third poetry collection

Testimony to Divinity, the collection’s first poem, features a common theme with Kumar’s work: nature is so beautiful that it proves the existence of God.

Rhythm of the Ruins, Mukul Kumar, mukul kumar poetry

Rhythm of the Ruins is a compilation of 53 poems. (Photo: Amazon)

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Mukul Kumar, a bureaucrat by day and poet by night, has come out with his third poetry collection, Rhythm of the Ruins [The Browser, Rs 495], a compilation of 53 poems revolving around anecdotes from his personal life, observations of nature and reflections on the writing process. Like his previous collection, Catharsis, the poems are rendered with an endearing honesty, but ultimately fall flat on their awkward rhythms, clichéd metaphors, and distracted thematic focus.

Testimony to Divinity, the collection’s first poem, features a common theme with Kumar’s work: nature is so beautiful that it proves the existence of God. Its alliteration is accessible and its imagery strong, but the ‘divine’ examples of nature chosen are too generic for effect. There are ‘springs’, ‘birds’, ‘bees’ and ‘butterflies’, ‘nameless pleasures’, and ‘birds unknown’, but no specifics to ground the reader.

Mukul Kumar, a bureaucrat by day and poet by night. (Photo: Mukul Kumar)

Similar problems plague Lastly the Heart Beats, which is a short account of an anxious visit to a cardiologist. It ends with the heartwarming realisation (pun intended) that life grows in value as the heart ages, but the fall-back on a favoured theme — the writing process — results in hackneyed cliches.
In poems where he builds up specific imagery, however, Kumar shines in personification. A twig ‘cheerfully quivers’ when a bird flies off it in I wish to be where I am not. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes are referenced in Sublime Syzygy, comparing a view of a dusky sky with both sun and moon, and the painting wherein God creates both celestial bodies. Kumar injects a layer of romance and realism in it, contemporarily interpreting the Renaissance painting.