Literary Yard has received the following press note about ‘Rhapsodies and Musings’ to be formally launched on 25 July, 2015. It is a literary criticism book that is expected to give more and relevant insights into the works of Sharmila Ray and Kiriti Sengupta.

Rhapsodies and Musings is a book on literary criticism on the works of Sharmila Ray and Kiriti Sengupta, two of the finest Indian English poets, based in Kolkata. Here Ketaki Datta examines the poetry of Sharmila Ray, and Tania Chakravertty looks at the poetry of Kiriti Sengupta. These explorations, published by Hawakaal Publishers, offer more than a surface look at those poets.

Written in a lucid way, Rhapsodies and Musings, has been declared a bestselling title [in Indian Literary Criticism] in the United States. While critiquing Ray’s works Ketaki remarked, “Sharmila Ray’s poems leave many a poetry-lover with a sense of fulfilment, an intense desire to live life, an utmost satisfaction of reading. So far as the themes of her poems are concerned, like the metaphysical poets, she has a variety of them; regarding style, she is a matchless craftsman, who can lead a reader straight from the ground we stand upon to the ground realities of life, we often dare not explore so intrepidly.”

On the other hand Tania opined: “If Sengupta were to follow T.S. Eliot’s dictum that true art should be impersonal, what would that lead to? The clash of opinions still persists – that between the romantic school and the modernist school – Sengupta adheres to the romantic school of thought. It’s the creator’s choice and I guess it’s right for him because if he were to turn impersonal, that would take away the essence of his signature poems, the unique subjective and personal elements.” In an afterthought Don Martin wrote: “We need more works like Rhapsodies and Musings so that we English-speakers can enjoy the ethereal, spiritual beauty of Indian English poetry — English-language poetry by the Bengali poets, to be precise!”