This gathering of poems is a reflection on what it means to be human, to be a living repository of timestamps of our individual and collective struggles and celebrations and of rebellions and failures. These poems are a quiet observation of our responses to the passing of these events and of our efforts to understand this world that offers experiences of duality — of wars and peacetime, abundance and poverty, of love and hate. Lastly, Ode to Broken Things is a prayer and an earnest dream for a peaceful world for everyone, where all hearts are warm and borders are always open.
Ode to Broken Things
published by Red River, January 2025
In Shruti Kulkarni’s poetry, we are taken to the heart of matter — to observe the atomic, the molecular, the granular parts of our inner and outer worlds that we miss amid the unsettling busyness. Ode to Broken Things invites us to feel, see, think and wonder about all that surrounds us. Raw and uncut, these poetic expressions draw us towards hope, and to the question, ‘What if we all spoke in poetry?’
— Vinutha Mallya -- journalist, editor and lecturer
Ode to Broken Things is an extraordinary collection of poems that offers us that most elusive of feelings: a moment of stillness to connect within ourselves. Shruti’s verses, their cadence, allow us to experience precious long-buried sensations and emotions. In her work, forests, rivers, birds, wildflowers, love and loss…are rediscovered in the most profound ways…connecting and reminding us about the fragile web of life. These poems transcend the intensely personal and resonate with all that makes us human. This is a book that needs to be carried with us wherever we go...to reflect upon, and heal us.
— Gulan Kripalani -- transformational leadership practitioner-coach