Being an intensely private person, it wasn't easy for Raywa Ravipati to compile poems that she has written for over five years and put out an anthology titled Mirages of the Past, but the 24-year-old has been egged on by friends through it all — from the time they created a blog for the Hyderabadi youngster to post all her poems to last week, when they threw a Meet the Author party for her book at iStay Hotels, HITEC City. "It was a surprise!" says the happy youngster who has distilled her experiences painstakingly into this labour of love.
When not looking after the sales and marketing side of her family's business, Raywa is a freelancer. It was the pandemic that gave her the time to carefully pick out poems that will resonate with her debut book. "If you pick up my book, I am 100% sure that at some point or the other, you will find something relatable," she guarantees. She also assures us that the poems are not confined to any poetic pattern nor are they laden with heavy words. These poems touch upon topics like friendship, mental health, self-doubt, love and beyond, and are sans any titles, instead, small descriptions precede the poem, which prepares you for what's to come. Written in free verse, this collection of 35 poems depicts organic emotions that we have all gone through.
Whenever Raywa feels overwhelmed with any emotion, her first instinct is to type it out. That's how, in some instances, she is capable of finishing poems in five minutes flat. Certain poems she has had to labour through, like the one she wrote for a friend who was dealing with insomnia. "Sometimes, there is not much you can do to help. This was my way of helping her," says the alumna of GITAM (Deemed) University who pursued her Computer Science Engineering from there. She also dedicated a poem to a friend who passed away in a car crash.
While poetry has been knocked off Raywa's bucket list, she hopes that she will be able to write and publish a few short stories too in between indulging in some of her favourite things like candle-making, baking and playing with her three dogs. She carries the influence of Sylvia Plath and Erin Hanson, whose anthology of poems Reverie she just finished reading, in her heart and hopes that she is able to pour it out whenever it feels full.
A poem from her book
Wither away I say
To the worries that weighed heavy and I couldn’t keep at
bay,
Hold on I say
To the hope that makes me wake up and go on every day,
Dry away I say
To the tears that adorn my cheeks every time I stumble upon
a new fake,
Plough away I say
At the goals and dreams that seem so far away,
Most of all,
Stay
Stay always I say
To the peace I had to find because everyone who were meant
to stay stepped away
Check out her book here amzn.to/2WtuuBX
