Recipe for a Poet’s Broth

Nivedita Roy is a prolific writer. Her book “Recipe for a Poet’s Broth” is her seventh book. In her Preface she shares the motivation behind her drive to write. “Pouring out my thoughts on paper is cathartic” and adds “it is a therapy”. She further mentions “I had to keep expressing myself through my scribbles”. The book is divided into several sections and begins with the section titled “What’s My Poetry?”. The poems draw from her personal experiences, her deepest emotions, her concern with social issues, and the acknowledgment of ‘influences and inspirations’ on her. Through the expression of her reflections in her poetry, Nivedita comes across as a poet who is sincere and honest in striving to find answers to many events in her own life and the events she observes around her. The poem “Recipe for a Poet’s Broth” uses a metaphor to provide Nivedita’s definition of poetry, “A pinch of expression/On a cup of words/ A dollop of vocabulary/With a subtle tone of mirth/… Nivedita uses both rhyme and free verse in her poems. ----- Kavita Ezekiel Mendonca, Author of ‘Family Sunday and other Poems’, ‘Light of The Sabbath’, ‘Nissim Ezekiel Poet & Father’.