Sigma
Author: Shirley Lalrinfeli
Pages: 86
Year of Publication: 2026
Price: ₹350
ISBN:
978-81-995932-4-4 (9788199593244)
About the Author
Shirley Lalrinfeli has an MA in English from the University of Hyderabad. Her poetry has appeared in several e-zines such as The Little Journal of Northeast India, The Alipore
Post and Spark, the Magazine. Her poems have also been published in the journal of the Mizoram English Literary Society, better known as MIELS. She has won several awards for her writing, including third prize in a short-story competition and second prize in a poetry competition, both organised by MIELS. She enjoys painting, writing long-form fiction and daydreaming.
Teaser
Synchronic Soliloquies
A painting,
a Mona Lisa,
with slight variations in her smile —
yellow wildflowers dot the hills of Aizawl.
If Mona Lisa had been born in these hills,
would she have worn her puanchei with pride,
and a vakiria saying she’s the reigning beauty queen?
Don’t go into that dark night
It is forbidden
Don’t let’s go, let’s tarry for a while.
Da Vinci would have painted my ancestors if he had been there
in their fields harvesting sweet potatoes
and brewing rice beer —
I would have painted a field of lonesome senhri,
perhaps a village scene,
farmers trudging home with em full of yams,
if I weren’t so damned.
It’s like I can’t see,
and to paint you need to look closely.
You need to fall in love with different shapes and lines,
shades and hues
— a smile with wrinkles playing at the corners —
life and old age in the same body.
Old artist belonging to the start of the Holocene,
come here and show us how to live.
Say it, that you think us foolish.
Eternal monsoons,
Wild summer flowers.
Contents
45 poems spread across 5 sections
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