In the recent poetry ventures, most of the poets are either confused about their writing or confuse their writing so much that they become too much complicated for the readers to understand! And this feeling of frustration does not let the poetry convey its true meaning to the readers and thus, the poetry collection becomes just another attempt which couldn’t reach the readers in good terms. However, reading S A Joseph’s An Apology for Shakespeare has been a good experience for me and it just allowed me to release myself by reading the poetry which was modern in style and narration but nearly very close to the classic school of poetry which always used to warn the human beings of their mistakes and misdeeds.

S A Joseph is a poet from Kerala whose debut poetry collection An Apology for Shakespeare has been published in 2014 winter. Since the publication, the book has been receiving very encouraging reviews by the readers and also the well-known book critics from India. Also received a warm message from the Queen of England, S A Joseph’s work puts a defence of poetry in the verse that he has written for the collection. His poems are basically a cry or a moan about the world which we have made out of this planet where art and poetry have no value at all or the least of it, and the poet mourns the same.

A very bold and encouraging style of poetry meets the readers when they begin reading An Apology for Shakespeare. The poet questions the very essence of the world where not God but the archangel and banished king of evil Lucifer rules over the humanity. He warns the people in a different kind of metaphorical manner of you can say that most of the poems are a kind of litotes in themselves where the poet means something entirely opposite of what he has been saying.

At the end of the collection, you will come to realise that the poet has done the job wonderfully but it could slightly be better in the terms of rhetorical effects. The poetry by S A Joseph sends and delivers the messages it wants to convey very successfully but they lack a little in the terms of style and beauty. We can digest that as modern poetry has become more like T S Eliot’s sojourn where the poets want to convey the meaning and focus more on that rather than focusing on the means of delivering the messages. For the lovers of poetry, the collection is wonderful and they will surely like the book! Get your copy from the link below and enjoy reading the poems of S A Joseph.