An Apology for Shakespeare – review

An Apology for Shakespeare is a poetry collection by a well-known poet from Kerala, S A Joseph. A bold and innovative poetry tradition seems to be emerging when you see at the writings by him because, in those, S A Joseph has done the things which the poets generally don’t do or think of doing so. The poet has presented his book to the readers as a defence of poetry and the poet makes us think that he is writing his work to let people know that poetry is important and should not be ignored by the society and he does so, actually!

The poems in the book can be termed ordinary in the terms of form because S A Joseph seldom cares about the way he writes. Nevertheless, the poems, in the terms of the content and the things which are written about in the poems, can simply be termed wonderful and it makes a shift in the modern poetry where the poets care more about the subjects on which they write rather than the way in which they write about their subjects.

Major themes in the poems of S A Joseph in his debut collection An Apology for Shakespeare are of death, life, godlessness, modern society, lack of interest in art and poetry and a kind of attraction towards Lucifer which has been used as a wonderful metaphor by the poet throughout the work. The poems make sense when read with a little attention and you might seldom find them sonorous. The form might be said rigid and non-moving but the themes, once again I will say, are remarkable and extraordinary. The poet has just exposed, if I may use this word, the modern ways of living and cunningly thriving towards our supposed success…

To conclude the review, I will say that the poet has done a commendable job in his very debut work. An Apology for Shakespeare will surely be a great collection for the readers and lovers of poetry who seldom get anything worth reading these days. In a time when we find poets almost every second door, the contribution of S A Joseph cannot be counted off! You can get a copy of the book from the Amazon India link below:

An Apology for Shakespeare on Amazon