Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
You might have noticed I haven’t had the chance to host a lot of poets & collections of short stories in quite a long while. For quite a long while I was starting to get announcements about tours which featured these kinds of stories and then, there seemed to be a bit of a dry patch about the availability to host poets and short fiction writers. I love to dive into a poetry collection and/or a short story and novella anthology – for the latter, I have mostly staid within the Speculative Fiction realms but when it comes to Poetry, I have been a bit more exploratory in my selections. You can read through my past reviews for poems if you scroll to the bottom of my Story Vault.
There you will find former reviews I’ve shared where I truly tried to peer into the poems and to see how the vision of the poem and the reaction I felt after reading them could become articulated into a review. I found it most challenging in the beginning to sort out my thoughts about poetry because how a person reads a poem is such an interpersonal experience. It is rooted in our own living histories and our own perceptional insight – *everything!* about us goes into how we read a poem because poems are small glimpses into the human spirit and our soul. It is how we can share a portion of ourselves within the tender small space of a poem.
What drew me to host this lovely blog tour is how all the poems are about a women’s experience and of the tides of her life – I love reading Women’s Fiction for similar reasons, as the genre itself tucks into the emotional heart of a women’s life as it is being lived. Women’s Fiction for me always felt like a cosy niche of where I could write stories myself because unlike Romance where it is more hinged on the HEA (happy ever after) or the HFN (happy for now) – Women’s Fiction goes deeper into the heart of the women in the story. To get into her head and to see a more interpersonal journey of where she is when we arrive inside her life.
I knew I wanted to feature this collection ahead of reading it – as there were only digital copies available for review – which gave me a chance to host a small extract for the blog tour. I hadn’t opened the file until I went to write my spotlight and I had to smirk. The topic for my extract had a personal connection as I’ve been distancing myself with my love of coffee to reacquire and reacquaint myself with ‘tea’. I’ve been enjoying copious warming cuppas of chai recently and it is like ‘coming home’ in a cuppa!
If you enjoy Poetry & short fiction, perhaps this collection will resonate with you – I am thankful I could champion the collection on Jorie Loves A Story today. And, hopefully the poem which is being shared leaves you with a few ruminations, too!
Converse via: #UnderTheShadeOfTheBanyanTree, #Poetry, #ShortStories
as well as #WomensFiction and #BTPrism
Published: 30th September, 2019 | ISBN: 9781951375072
Life is not about achieving perfection, it’s about reconciling with your imperfections.
Poems are fragments of life. In Simi K. Rao’s unique poetry collection for women, there are blissful moments; deep, invisible wounds; cries for help; declarations of defiance and philosophical observations. The poems and prose pieces compiling the collection are fragments of life elucidating the different phases of the human condition. Under the Shade of the Banyan Tree will leave readers wanting for more and have a deep impact on women of all ages.
Enjoy this small Extract from the collection:
A Cup of Tea
A cup of tea
is a fuzzy, warm morning
flicking aside the blanket of night
It is a lazy afternoon
a let’s sit down
and chat for a while
It is a moment
booked just for me
to waste as I please
to brood
sit by the window
look at nothing
or hitchhike on a plume of steam
to neverland
We put so much expectation into our tea, do we not? Tea is meant to be cherished and enjoyed – a way of finding a bit of Zen out of the chaotic patterns of our daily lives – a time to retreat into a moment of calm even if everything else feels like its starting to spin, as you sip the tea – the warmth of the liquid and the purity of the brew allows you to feel a bit calmer and a bit more centrered. Tea for me has been a staple of my life – as it wasn’t until I was a pence short of thirty when I had my first cuppa coffee. Chai and fresh brewed tea were my jams prior to coffee and it has been a purpose of mine for the past few years to divorce my love of coffee and exchange it with a lost love of mine: tea and chai. More recently, after years of talking about drinking Kombucha I am finding that I am in *love!* with it.
Mum and I are infamous locally for our coffee klatches – wherein, it is a wonderful way to have an honestly engrossing conversation over chai, tea or coffee whilst remembering to laugh and not to take life too seriously because we all need a time to unwind and release our stress. I love how this poem encompasses all the reasons why we ‘turn to tea’ and what we ‘expect’ out of the experience of drinking tea. The reasons we seek tea and the reasons why sometimes we don’t need to do anything but sit and enjoy our cuppa.
I look forward to reading more of this collection when I can bring home a copy in print – I already am an appreciator of the writer’s poetic style and look forward to seeing what else I will find when I go to read the fuller collection. As you’re wandering through the blog tour this week, I hope you’ll stop on my fellow book blogger’s blogs as each of us has a different extract to share with you.
What do you love about discovering anthologies full of novellas, short stories and/or poetry?
About Simi K. Rao
Simi K. Rao was born and grew up in India before relocating to the U.S., where she has lived for several years. The inspiration for her books, and other projects, comes from her work and experience with cross-cultural traditions, lifestyles, and familial relationships. Rao enjoys exploring the dynamics of contemporary American culture blended with Indian customs and heritage to reflect the challenges and opportunities many Indian American women face in real life. She is a practicing physician, and much of her down time is devoted to creative pursuits, including writing fiction and poetry, and photography. She is also an avid reader and traveler and has visited many locations around the world. She has written four novels. Under the Shade of the Banyan Tree is her first collection of poems and short stories. She is currently working on a new novel. She lives in Denver with her family. To learn more about Simi or her books, visit the links shared on this biography.
This blog tour is courtesy of: Prism Book Tours
NOTE: Similar to blog tours wherein I feature book reviews, book spotlights (with or without extracts), book announcements (or Cover Reveals) – I may elect to feature an author, editor, narrator, publisher or other creative person connected to the book, audiobook, Indie film project or otherwise creative publishing medium being featured wherein the supplemental content on my blog is never compensated monetarily nor am I ever obligated to feature this kind of content. I provide (98.5%) of all questions and guest topics regularly featured on Jorie Loves A Story. I receive direct responses back to those enquiries by publicists, literary agents, authors, blog tour companies, etc of whom I am working with to bring these supplemental features and showcases to my blog. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them: I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers. Whenever there is a conflict of connection I do disclose those connections per post and disclose the connection as it applies.
{SOURCES: Cover art of “Under the Shade of the Banyan Tree”, synopsis, the author’s photo (for Simi K. Rao) and biography as well as the blog tour banner, the extract from the book and The Prism Book Tours badge were all provided by Prism Book Tours and used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded by codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Stories in the Spotlight banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2020.
I’m a social reader | I tweet my reading life
?NEW #BookSpotlight via #JLASblog!
?#Poetry
?#ShortStories
?#UnderTheShadeOfTheBanyanTree
?For readers of #WomensFiction'We put so much expectation into our #tea, do we not?'
Read an extract: https://t.co/6ldHWjpARa#BTPrism | #blogtour
Find? https://t.co/K5cKZNPMV9 pic.twitter.com/slvWd9TMzG
— Jorie (#WyrdAndWonder) ??? (@joriestory) July 28, 2020
Comments via Twitter:
beautiful cover! hope you're well, Jorie!
— Viv Writes Mystery & Romance (@VivWrites) July 28, 2020
Thank you for posting and sharing! https://t.co/gu45HlGD1U
— simikrao@gmail.com (@simikrao) July 28, 2020
I agree with you tea is so important in life, for us Indians Chai. I can’t start a day without my chai and it’s difficult to concentrate on anything without it. I don’t read poetry but this sounds interesting. Great review!
Hallo, Hallo Yesha,
I happen to love the spices of chai – I’ve grown quite fond of chai myself, as it is such a wonderful variant to just brewing some tea as it feels more like a hug of love you can feel from a coffee latte. However, I’ve grown particular about my chai now — I love it to be spicy but not too sweet. I always feel my spirit renews when I’ve had a cuppa chai – it is hard to put into words but its what you’ve expressed yourself. It centers you and it gives you a fresh start to your day.
I’m thankful this gave you some insight into the collection and that you might give it a read! I love helping my readers know about these kinds of collections as I was a bit unsure how to find poets I wanted to read myself and through hosting blog tours I’ve started to develop my way in pursuit of poetry.
Thank you for visiting with me this morning!