Served Cold from the Refrigerator

Sutputra Radheye’s poems are unpunctuated. Unpunctuated too in their expressions of truth, often through self-confession and satire. So acute is his knowledge of luminaries of literature, music and events that he can address these with an audacious playfulness that is never off-key. Weighty subjects like love and death or contemporary issues such as caste, gender or consumerism are viewed through an original lens, laying the subjects bare. He writes: ‘my poems will be drunk, truthful/and blunt like your beauty that cuts/through my skin and draws graffiti/on my bones like tattoos.’ Yet the poems have flashes of hope, joy, appreciation and a quest for freedom. For in his own words: ‘when will we learn/to not cage things/that are born to be free?’ — Neera Kashyap

A collection of poems that engages with both the monumental and the minute, the accessible and the elusive, the traditional and the emerging. The poet’s voice expands the possibilities of poetry, while maintaining the observational clarity throughout the collection. — Kabir Deb 

Sutputra Radheye’s poems originate from the lived experiences, which adds a freshness in diction and style. The poet is candid and often ruthlessly honest. The poems bring out miseries of poverty, hypocrisies of society, gender issues as well as spirituality, making the readers step out of their comfort zones. The poems also speak of hope and strength, hope that one derives after losing everything. This book will be a significant addition to the oeuvre of Indian poetry in English. — Nabanita Sengupta