Dr. Jagruti Vyas Trivedi hails from a family that's deeply steeped in spirituality and culture. Her inclination towards literature, especially poetry, and her upbringing in a serene ambience nurtured her poetic imagination, resulting in this debut poetry collection. She believes that poetry can ignite the minds and souls of the people. making them transcend this world of sensory perception. In her poems, she mingles the flavor of diverse moods and sensibilities intrinsic to the process of poetic creation.

She received her Doctoral Degree in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath and is presently working as an associate professor in the department of English at Smt. Kesharbai Lahoti College. Amravati (MS). She relishes being into creative writing and working on the editorial board of the college magazine. Apart from poetry, she is passionate about listening to music and traveling in the realm of nature with family and friends.

Life goes on day after day leaving behind a trail of experiences and memories, some bitter, some sweet, making us comprehend its taste in varying degrees. Throwing a lingering look at those moments in some wishful hours and listening to their soft echo is in itself "Poetry", just waiting to be born. At this juncture of life, the bitter, sweet memories of the past are knocking the doors of my spirit making me embrace them softly and sensitively. During this creative process I have gained the first hand experience of how a poet laughs and weeps with the words and poetic expressions. The greatest realisation that dawned upon me is that how painful yet how blissful the birth of poetry is! Spontaneity spreads softly, making one stand in awe by the Muse's grace. It is like a moment in which something flashes and the light dazzles one with the divine delight of creation as described by Coleridge as "A miracle of rare device".

Since my early days I was inclined towards literature. This inclination made me collect the quotes of great poets, reading them a number of times and wondering how can one compose the thoughts and feelings so beautifully, so effectively.

I started feeling a strong fascination for the magic of words. Works of these greats made me realize that we are here not just to make a living, but to make the world around live more beautifully, with greater vision, humanitarian approach, kindness and finer spirit of love. This spirit gets reflected through literature. In spite of being a student of science stream in my carlier phase, I felt a strong force of literature due to the timely and adept guidance by my teacher and mentor Dr Vivek S Deshmukh and later on by Late Prof P.A. Sahasrabuddhe. They metamorphosed my raw imagination and helped me complete my graduation with English Literature and later my doctoral research in poetry.

The internal journey had begun long back in me and unknowingly this poetic journey through "verdurous expanse and winding mossy ways" has brought me at the point of this first book of my literary endeavour. The formal education has its own limitations. No doubt, it trains us in three R's (reading, writing and arithmetic) which are important to survive in this civilised society. But if it was not for my parents, no formal education would have instilled in me the desire to embrace the sky. Their eclectic vision and wisdom became instrumental in endowing me with the poetic sensibility and imagination that connects me with the world beyond words. They channelized my way of thinking in right direction.

Dr. Jagruti Vyas Trivedi's poems are unique for two reasons - those poems scream of authenticity with an absolute and tight harmony between her diction, the rhythm her poems choose and the expression she wishes to portray. And then there is another reason which makes it stand above rest of the lot - her poems dwell in a realm which tries to bridge the fissure that deepens as age a and experience grows between the earthly reason of existence and metaphysical purpose of life, if any. In one of the poems, she expresses her strong urge to traverse to find the power center within' and to her avail is nonetheless but Einstein himself with his famous energy - mass equation. There is another poem wherein her mathematician father equates Newton's third law with theory of Karma. This attempt of Dr. Jagruti's poems to stand on the sacred site of meeting of science and metaphysics is itself a courageous one and praiseworthy. And yet, there are signs, signals which bring out a longing to meet... just to tell you that it's raining. The poem may be addressing a lover or God or anyone but clearly and distinctly this is an earthly longing of bonding, relationships and far away from perceived detachment as many spiritual practices demand. I like this work precisely for these both axioms upon which these poems stand and try to balance. And it does so quite with quite a success. I would like to congratulate Dr. Jagruti Vyas Trivedi for her fine creation and wish success for this volume of poetry in terms of it meeting with right, sensitive and receptive audience it demands.

**Contents and Sample Pages**