Name: Songs Of A Coward: Poems Of Exile
Rating: 3.97 (64 reviews)
Author: Perumal Murugan
ISBN: 9780143428824

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Author: Perumal Murugan Translator: Aniruddhan Vasudevan

3.97/5 · 64 ratings

A king decrees that all humans be skinned alive. A man runs from words that hound him like a pack of wolves. A legion of white snakes sweeps across a land blighted by drought. A beleaguered soul laments the loss of a homeland. A coward's many virtues are lauded to disturbing effect. By turns passionate, elegiac, angry, tender, nightmarish and courageous, the poems in Songs of a Coward weave an exquisite tapestry of rich images and turbulent emotions. Written during a period of immense personal turmoil, these verses are an enduring testament to the resilience of an imagination under siege and the liberating power of words in one's darkest moments.

Reviews

user_18277

★ 4/5

I was curious when I picked up this book. In fact, this is not my usual genre, but I was pulled in by his interview published in a weekly shortly after the book's release. Of course, reading it in its original form in Tamizh would have been very different. So, about the book, the author to put in his own words had written these poems for himself. To give a leeway to that constant voice that was once booming within but then later subdued by the so called moral cries of the community, to vent the hurt & the pain, to heal or even to hope, I guess. Few of the poems quite naturally pass his pains of hurt and anger onto the reader. Of course, sometimes it did feel repetitive, but then when looked at as a chronicle of the author's mental journey through pain, hurt, and anger, every single poem in here felt important and significant to me. For someone, who wants to understand the consequences of controversies such as madhorubagan, this book is a suggestive read.

user_18276

★ 5/5

This book has given me a week of emotional peaks that I could have missed even if I were to live a thousand years :)

user_18275

★ 3/5

2.5-3 I just don't know about this collection. I'm not sure if it was the translation or my lack of cultural understanding, but I found this book fairly underwhelming. There were some moments of brilliance which kept me going but there were often times I felt the poems were very same/same or just lacking emotionally, for me at least.

user_18274

★ 5/5

But in my language silence squats firmly in all those places meant for my words

user_18273

★ 5/5

he made the mundane life sound intriguing. laughed, smiled and sympathized with many of these.

user_18272

★ 4/5

im surprised by how much i actually enjoyed this

user_18271

★ 5/5

हृद्यभेदक

user_18270

★ 4/5

Painful, depressing, loss of all hope, anger, desperation, going into a shell, hibernation - it was a very difficult read let alone understanding what Perumal must have gone through... its melancholy from start and only keeps going down and down and down...

user_18269

★ 5/5

Mr. Murugan wrote these poems when he was facing outrage from certain groups against one of his books. He says that he had completely lost his interest in writing. But when you hit the rock bottom you can only move upwards. And that exactly what he has done. 'Songs of a coward' if a brave attempt towards finding yourself and thus poems of exile have achieved excellence! Becoming a voice for the people, for yourself in never easy. But seldom have artists taken an easy way out!

user_18268

★ 3/5

I ardently wished I could read Tamil while reading this collection. The translator seems to have fell short of a little something. Sometimes the meter wasn't right and I know we can't expect it in poems such as the ones written here by Mr. Murugan. Some of the poems like the one dedicated to Kalburgi and another titled, bitterness touched various despair nerves within me. I feel the intensity of his poetry must definitely be greater than the translation here. It somehow felt inadequate. Or maybe my love for him gravitates more for his novels. In any case, I am still his fan.

user_18267

★ 4/5

In this poem collection by Murugan, there are numerous traces of best works of Perumal all over. Flowing from brutally and mercilessly expressing the loathe he has faced by society, he adds a tinge of accepting the same with pungent love. In a long time, someone had not articulated the feeling of loneliness, self-acceptance and the shunning-down hatred that society has to offer.

user_18266

★ 3/5

I want to say I'm neutral about this one but I really don't want to comment on this.

user_18265

★ 4/5

He is a better poet than as a writer. One thing for sure - he is a poet rather than a short story writer. I have read three of his books so far. This collection of poems, a novel called 'The Current Show' (which I couldn't enjoy much) and a short story collection called 'The Goat Thief' (which failed to impress me). This one turned out to be the most memorable one for me. However, this one is a huge change regarding his writing style. These are not just poems! His poetry has a way of nudging my innermost thoughts and wake them up. I was literally transferred to a land of South India where there is an imaginary home where I was comfortable watching him do all the things he described in the lines. In this book, he describes about growing up, facing life, the joys and the prejudices he kept facing, the dilemma of being a writer, his innermost thoughts and appreciation of everything good or bad that keeps happening in his life. Some lines are difficult to follow yet when I read twice they tell me a lot more than I can think of. His way of playing with words is simply amazing, closest to being magical! When I picked up this collection, I thought he would talk about the times of partition and some patriotic poems. But how wrong I was! All this book talks about is how a person sees his world in his own special ways. I highly recommend you to pick up this collection of poems from one of the most prolific writers of our time. Did I say Perumal Murugan is more of a poet?

Genres

Poetry

Shelves

Aniruddhan Vasudevan book Poetry Perumal Murugan

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