We asked the DS Books editors and contributors about the books that most moved them this year.

It's June–the first day of Summer, You have never come home empty-handed, And I stand by our apartment door, Eye the lift as it totes between floors.

I saw a leaf falling yesterday. The wind took the leaf on its back then disappeared.

She reminds me of Desdemona,/ A character, a wife, a tramp, but never human! So maybe she was a witch, / Maybe sirens were witches too,

bits and pieces of her day/ get stuck in her hair/ she carries grief quietly

Dickinson shows that mellifluousness of language is what gives a heightened attribute to the essence of a poesy.

SHOUT and Daily Star Books jointly organise the Slam Poetry Nights once every month to offer a platform for conversations on art, personal freedom, and the issues urgent to the country’s people, all through the lens of poetry. 

The December session arrives on Friday, December 2, at the Gulshan Paara Utshab at 3:00-3:45 PM.

Thoughts of a devoted poet

She came out from the cocoon of the accepted designated roles of women and marched forward to live an extraordinary life. 

What moon might mean to you

Oh, I’m waltzing down.

But like him they will remember her complexion and her curls and the countless pieces that she graced.

Daffodils and forget-me-nots smile under the Autumn Sun.

A poem about the Fall.

Eight mighty titans, unleashing their wrath!

A series of poems also reflect his ecological sensitivity to the machine in the garden and snakes and hyenas imperiling forests and rivers and Dhaka—the city he has lived in for most of his life.

Nineteen performers recited poems in Bangla and English, their topics ranging from nostalgia, personal growth and daydreams to mental health, death, and trauma.

Protiti’s poems are mostly ‘bare’ conversational musings exploring ‘selfhood, separation, exile, love and longing’.

A fine good morning poem