The Song of Silence: A Collection of Poems by Soumya Menon
Published by Red River
Staff Reporter, Auckland, January 5, 2021
‘The Song of Silence’ was conceptualised during the beginning of Covid-19 in March 2020 when several countries started imposing lockdowns and home quarantine; and people across the globe started reeling under the numbing pressure of the unknown.
The book was written to capture various issues that started raking up due to the pandemic, including the importance of mental health.
The Sounds of Silence
The Collection has 57 poems, divided into four sections, which are interconnected in some way or the other. Silence is woven into every poem and plays a different role in different events or situations. The poems were written in a period of 60 days between March and May 2020. The author wrote every single day for two months and silence is what inspired her to write.
The Collection looks at trauma and healing, stressing the important realisation for the human race that there is nobody born without trauma (including transgenerational) and everybody needs to heal at their own pace.
Covid-19 came as one of the most colossal traumatic events (in recent times) affecting every living being.
The effect of pandemic
The title was inspired by a poem of the same name (The Song of Silence) in the Collection, which describes the effect of the pandemic on every life (not only human life) on the planet. The poem captures the idea of fear and how human life is robotic and mechanical due to the make-believe race to get somewhere.
Why is everyone running? What happens when you are forced to stop running and are engulfed by silence?
The Collection covers political issues, racism, atrocities against women, children, gender discrimination, gender bias, atrocities against non-binaries or fluid genders, relationships, mindfulness, and the author’s personal journeys and experiences through emotions of fear, courage, trust, faith, belief, self-love, self-care, realism, and the very basis of human existence — the search for happiness and fulfilment.
The Poetry Community
The author met Red River through the poetry community in India and it was a perfect match.
Dibyajyoti Sarma, Founder-Owner of Red River is himself a poet and believes in making every piece of poetry lovable. He has depicted the concept of the Book on its Cover and charcoal artwork across its pages.
Author’s Note
Poetry is the only form of literature that ignites me. I started writing poems at the age of seven. They gave me meaning like no other written form. I remember as a child, between the ages five and ten, when I travelled to my father’s ancestral home in Kerala, I would open up a wooden cupboard filled with books and try and read them. In the large house, the Silence took me on a journey into the worlds of English authors.
Silence is loud and it takes your mind to places you have visited before and places you have never even imagined.
I am grateful to the lessons life has taught me for there is nothing more enlightening than the realisation that there is hope. Poetry is a form of expression that can help people release the fear that is holding them back from voicing out their truth.
I found the strength to write this Collection in the depths of my own despair.
The Song of Silence was a fruit borne from a war won over a series of traumatic events. Limitlessness is not an illusion.
About the Author
Soumya Menon is an author, poet, and storyteller. She was a national and international journalist specialising in crime reporting, with reputed publications and media houses.
When she is not writing poetry or short stories, she works as a marketing communications professional.
Her literary work balances the divide between reasoning, mindfulness, realism and existentialism. She also loves writing poetry and short stories for children, short stories for all ages, articles, and flash fiction.
She has always been inspired by metaphysical poet John Donne.
In 2018, she was selected as one of the Top 50 poets as part of the Great Indian Poetry Contest, organised by On Fire Cultural Movement (judged by Kalki Koechlin and Kausar Munir) and her poem ‘Gambler’ was published in an international anthology ‘Aatish 2.’ The anthology also includes the greats like Gulzar and Taslima Nasrin.
Soumya has a degree in Psychology, English Literature, Journalism and Audio-Visual Communication. She currently resides in Bengaluru, India.
Find out more: https://linktr.ee/soumyamenon
Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/poetophil/
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/Poetophil/
Readers’ Reviews
The Metaphor of Silence
Soumya Menon has written a beautiful poetry Collection. Her poems employ silence as metaphor, silence as an interrogation technique, silence as deafening noise, silence as moments of acute observation and silence as the spaces in contemporary life’s musical score. Such a pleasure to read.
Devi S Laskar, Author, ‘The Atlas of Reds and Blues’
Duality with Silence
The Song of Silence journeys through the personal and the public and intertwines diverse experiences of this duality with silence — that meditative witness rooted in stillness and clarity. In these poems, Soumya Menon’s words explore and embark on a flight of freedom, kindling an expansive range of sensory experiences that render us little less of strangers when we are done reading.
Soni Somarajan, Author ‘First Contact’
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