Author: P. Lal
Pages: 64
Year of Publication: 2006
Price: Rs 150
ISBN:
81-8157-550-4 (8181575504)

Note:
You can read a review of the book here.

Author: P. Devarajan
Pages: 48
Year of Publication: 2010
Price: HB Rs 150, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-983-6 (9788181579836)
FB 978-81-8157-984-3 (9788181579843)

About the Author:
P. Devarajan was born on June 26, 1947 in Kottarakara Village (Kollam district). Soon afterwards, his family moved to Calcutta where he grew up. In 1970 he moved to Mumbai and he continues to live there. He has worked as a business journalist with The Times of India, Business Standard, Financial Express and The Hindu’s Business Line. He takes a strong interest in wildlife and ecology and has written articles on environmental concerns facing India for The Hindu. Devarajan's Some Poems 2009 was also published by Writers Workshop in 2010. You can read more of his poems on his blog by clicking here.

Teaser:

My generation

An old friend of mine (now, no more),
talked of scary night walks
across farmlands from Pindi to Delhi,
on shaking, unshod feet
at the head of a family of 18 women and children.
They smoked with hatred, soiled with blood –
anybody, everybody, nobody.
It was not a time to be born,
but born we were, my generation,
not into any nation.
We were not fated, we were our fate.
Fix bare, apartment-sized hearts
with TV and Internet;
switch on the mobile, turn off the neighbour.
Never appreciate the soaring crested hawk eagle
nor the knock of the house sparrow on the window sill.
On auspicious days buy gold bars at bank counters;
climb into cars, nudge a few trees and the poor
off the roads;
self we realize in selfishness;
despair,
when reminded of an old man's discount sales of
custom-made hearts baked in love;
built Rajghat when two bullets put him down.
Not a cigarette butt of honesty we own,
the mean generation,
scrawling a future in the air with
ballpoint pens.

Contents:
36 poems

Author: Kr. Fateh Singh Jasol
Pages: 136
Year of Publication: First edition 1999, Second edition 2010
Price: HB Rs 150, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-941-6 (9788181579416)
FB 978-81-8157-942-3 (9788181579423)

About the Author:
Born in 1942, Fateh Singh Jasol graduated in English Honours from St. Stephen’s College (New Delhi) in 1963. He completed his M.A. in English from Jodhpur University in 1965 and, later, went on to complete a second Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University in 1983. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1965 and served the Government of Gujarat and the Government of India. Jasol was awarded the Director’s Equitation Medal at the National Academy of Administration in 1966 and the President of India’s Medal for Distinguished Service, Census of India, in 1971. At present, he is Additional Chief Secretary in the Government of Gujarat. He has written several professional papers, articles, poems and short stories. Jasol is married to Sita Ranawat and has a son and a daughter.

Teaser:

Questions My Boy Asked Me

They were away on vacation.
The house is still.
Otherwise it would ring with the sound
Of the children’s laughter and their play.

The labour has arrived to paint the house.
The old paint is being scraped.
Lengths of wall are filled with their handiwork:
Trees, pigs, mice, lions, more trees, flowers.

I’m tempted to ask them to leave a patch undisturbed.

I remember a quiet September evening,
The birds quiet in the trees
And quietness from the boy in my arms
I remember questions he had asked me.

“If I paint on the wall
The Government will make you pay?”
Then, worried, wide-eyed, as afterthought, “too much?”
I remember, too, other things he had to say.

Once, papa, why is grass green?
Another time, his vocabulary still small,
Why do stars tinkle?
Then, one day, the ultimate.

Have you seen God, he asks.
Then, wonderingly, “Are you God?”

I wonder who was more disappointed
When he grew up and found out
No, I wasn’t God but
Except that He breathe life in me,
Just a very ordinary piece of sod.

[Gandhinagar, 1981.]

Contents:
66 poems

Author: Mandira Ghosh
Pages: 76
Year of Publication: 2010
Price: HB Rs 200, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-971-3 (9788181579713)
FB 978-81-8157-972-0 (9788181579720)

About the Author:
A graduate in Mathematics from Indraprastha College, New Delhi, and a post-graduate in English Literature, Mandira Ghosh's work combines science with philosophy, literature and the arts. She was awarded a Senior Fellowship by the Department of Culture, Government of India, for her contribution to Indian literature. She has received the Editor's Choice Award twice in the North American Open Poetry Contest in 1993 and 2003. Ghosh has been elected into the International Poetry Hall of Fame. Her poems and articles have been published in Women Poets of India, Indian Literature, The Journal of the Poetry Society of India, Poets International, World to World and several anthologies brought out by the International Society of Poets such as Best Poems of 90s.

Teaser:

Cosmic Tour

My cosmic tour is nearly over
As I conclude
What is in the cosmos
Remains alive in the atoms of my body.
The cosmos is my body and
The sun is my solar self.
If the resources are all lost to us
I will remain in other atoms
In my friend's consciousness
In other leaves
I will remain immortal
My cells won't dry
I won't die
In the intersection of time and space
I will exist
I will exist.
As the yogi years ago in astral uttered
"Discover that the cosmos is your body
The sun is your solar self."
I comprehend the final frontier
I could define the final frontier
As physics is approximate
Metaphysics is the ultimate answer.

Contents:
53 poems

Author: Manjit Kaur
Pages: 60
Year of Publication: 2010
Price: HB Rs 100, FB Rs 80
ISBN:
HB
FB

About the Author:
Dr. Manjit Kaur is an associate professor in the Post Graduate Government College for Girls, Chandigarh. She has written two books: The Feminist Sensibility in the Novels of Thomas Hardy and The Strawberry Sun and Other Poems. Her poems and research papers have been published in anthologies and literary journals. Her specific areas of interest are literary criticism, feminist studies and Indian writing in English.

Teaser:

Extreme Moments

In those extreme moments
Words rumble against the gates
To exact the essential offerings
Of your body parts
One by one at the alter
Of the contract you made years before
While drifting like a dreamy doll
Around the holy fire.
In my hours of solitude then
I do the repair work
Of stitching my soul to my body
To hide the shame of nakedness
From my own self.

Contents:
50 poems

Author: Ivy Imogene Hansdak
Pages: 44
Year of Publication: 2010
Price: HB Rs 120, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB
FB

About the Author:
Ivy Hansdak works as a senior lecturer in English in New Delhi. She received an M.Phil in English from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. As a poet, Hansdak has been influenced by English poetry as well as the alliterative and onomatopoeic folksongs of her mother tongue, Santali.

Teaser:

Ode to Delhi

In the acrid fumes of your traffic jams;
In the sweltering heat of your summers;
In the filth of your air-conditioned vapors;
We sleep and smile,
We dream and drift on.

In the clutching touches of beggars’ hands;
In the clanging sounds of auto rickshaw horns;
In the stench of sewers overflowing on roads;
We sing and dance,
We shrug and move on.

In the glitter of your neon lights and malls;
In the geometric shapes of your flyovers;
In the fleet of cars on your smooth highways;
We wink and wave,
We bow and emasculate.

Contents:

I. MONSOON SONATA
Indian Monsoon / 11
Sounds of a Rainy Night / 12
Sunbeams after Rain / 13
Just Another Rainy Day / 14
Summer Night Song / 15

II. RANDOM THOUGHTS
A Beggar Child / 19
An Old Man / 20
Small Miracles / 21
Specimens / 22
A Definition of Love / 23
To a Circus Lion / 24
Night Scene at Siri Fort Auditorium / 25
A Stray Cat in Godavari Hostel / 26
After the Riot: Her Voice / 27
Ode to Delhi / 29
The Last Drop / 30

III. SONGS OF WORSHIP
Can I conceive beauty equal to Thine? / 33
Though my lips are constrained / 34
I falter again / 35
Though my own people mock me / 36
Can I forget, Lord? / 37
Thou hast heard my prayers, at last! / 38
Visiting a Cathedral in Pondicherry Town / 39
Jesus Heals Two Blind Men (Matthew 20: 29-34) / 40

Author: K. Asha
Pages: 24
Year of Publication: 2010
Price: HB Rs 100, FB Rs 80
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-957-7 (9788181579577)
FB 978-81-8157-958-4 (9788181579584)

About the Author:
Dr. K. Asha was born in Kannur in Kerala and educated at Thiruvananthapuram. She holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of English, University of Kerala. At present, she is working as a lecturer in English at Pazhassi Raja NSS College, Mattanur. Her first book of poems, Summer Night, was published in 2007 by Writers Workshop, India.

Teaser:

When a Writer…

When a writer pens his emotions
The time stops for a moment
When a writer weaves his dreams
The season melts
When a writer abandons the world
The days and nights become one
When a writer looms a tale
We discard him
To make our mind
Prone to guilt…

Contents:
In Search of Rain / 9
When a Writer… / 12
The Forgotten Word / 13
Contradictions / 15
Answerless Questions / 17
To You Woman / 18
The Home Coming / 19
Women Writers / 21

Author: Michael Chacko Daniels
Pages: 128
Year of Publication: 2010
Price: HB Rs 150 / $ 25 (USD), FB Rs 200 / $ 20 (USD)
ISBN:
HB
FB

About the Author:
Michael Chacko Daniels is a former community worker and clown who grew up in Bombay, India. He lives and works in San Francisco. His writing has appeared in Apollo's Lyre, Cricket Online Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Hackwriters, Indelible Kitchen and The Battered Suitcase among other journals. He has published three books with Writers Workshop: Split in Two (Poems, 2004), Anything Out of Place Is Dirt (Novel, 2004) and That Damn Romantic Fool (Novel, 2005).

Teaser:

Fall at the Public Library

Outside sycamore
leaves drift: In here the children
round up whole wide worlds

Spring Loaded

Dewdrop holds blue sky
on soft green fig leaf sprouting
above winter brown

Evening in San Francisco

Half a slice of moon –
near the bus stop, flowers turn
a burnt sienna

A review of this collection can be found here. Scroll to the bottom of the page cited.

Contents:
Introduction, 51 works of haiku, Notes

Author: Pijush Dhar
Pages: 60
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 100, FB Rs 80
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-915-7 (9788181579157)
FB 978-81-8157-916-4 (9788181579164)

About the Author:
Pijush Dhar was born in 1941 in Siliguri, West Bengal. In 1964, his job at the Accountant General’s office brought him to Shillong. In 1973 he started his own poetry magazine, Pahariya (Of Hills), which has, over a period of twenty five years, remained his most enduring token of contribution to poetry in Shillong and the Northeast. He was the first to organize a Northeast Poetry Festival in 1986, in Shillong. Dhar has published seven collections of poetry in Bengali, all of them serving to demonstrate his deep admiration for Shillong.

Teaser:

A Forlorn Community Street

When in pieces of an eye-ball
an atomic rain of fire
leaves its frugal sightseeing
and flies yawning about in the sky,
a forlorn community street
desperately clings on to nothingness.

Some people match time, the right position of constellations,
when the rocks and the soil have left behind
their deep oneness of swimming together
to blindly sleep with a round of rain,
its five elements
the forcible antics of their mind.

Translated by Nabanita Kanungo

Contents:
46 poems

Author: Pallavi Subba Rao
Pages: 92
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 150, FB Rs 100
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-919-5 (9788181579195)
FB 978-81-8157-920-1 (9788181579201)

Teaser:

Sense of Direction

I go disoriented as my grey cells
running the intellectual marathon,
recede back in their steps.

I am on a busy quest for direction.

The nature is a prey to its own catastrophes,
is not able to pull itself out of it.
Its situations and moments make it or mar it.

Our hands steer the wheel of fortune,
putting us back to driver’s seat.
Wheel of our karma drives easily,
thanks to our will and enterprise…

When I decide to go inwards,
I see my own hand behind the wheel…

Dismayed, I throw up hands
which shoot a question to destiny
“where is the direction?”

Contents:
52 poems