Wrappings in Bespoke by Sanjeev Sethi
Published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press

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Review by Merril D. Smith

In Wrappings in Bespoke, Sanjeev Sethi offers concise, elegant, and enigmatic observations on life and humanity, encompassing the connections and missed connections between individuals. Love, loss, and growing older are major themes. In his evocative, “Loss and Other Lessons,” Sethi writes of the death of his grandfather “as though someone had/punched my solar plexus.” From his older sister there with him, “I learned my first big lesson: /Trust.” He passes on his hard-earned life lessons in “Wishes for a Child I Never Had.” Among other things, his desires include that they “not to be weak to the williwaw,” but also states that “An insight into the arts helps salve upheavals time thrusts upon us.”

Although some poems, such as these are personal, they are never sentimental. In “Megrims,” he writes, “Comfort lies in contextual certitudes./ I turn to switch words when my circuit needs decluttering.” Sethi’s poetry is leavened with wordplay and humor. Each poem jolts the reader with an unexpected turn or twist. For example, in “Avoirdupois,” the protagonist writes of being alone, and ends with a line that is poignant but that also cleverly plays on the title, “Yes, the burden/of being me is heavy.”

Sethi is master wordsmith. His poetry is brimming with unusual words, as well as common words used in unusual ways. The title of the collection, Wrappings in Bespoke, comes from one of my favorite poems in the volume, “Leave-Taking.” It is a poem about the passage of time and the parting of old friends or lovers —“You and I are no scholars of horology. . .when fresh, we lacked the grace to smell the flowers.”

Wrappings in Bespoke is wise, witty, and relevant. It is filled with wry longing and pithy aphorisms. What could be truer than these lines from the opening poem, “Biog,” “To be is to/bloom. The rest is contextual.”?

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Sanjeev Sethi is published in over thirty countries. Wrappings in Bespoke is his seventh poetry collection. His poems have also found a home in more than 390 journals, anthologies, and online literary venues. Recent credits: Stand Magazine, The Cannon’s Mouth, Litter Magazine, NOON | journal of the short poem, Rochford Street Review, Pomona Valley Review, Summer Anywhere (Hybriddreich), and The Best Asian Poetry 2021-22, among others.

He is the joint-winner of Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux, organized by The Hedgehog Poetry Press UK. He is the recipient of the Ethos Literary Award 2022. He is part of the Highly Commended list in the 2022 Erbacce-Prize UK from among 15 thousand of submissions. He lives in Mumbai, India.