God of Second Chances is a lyrical journey through the Urban Northwest—streets washed in rainlight, ferries sliding across dark water, mountains keeping quiet counsel. These poems invite readers to see and feel the fragile, complex, dangerous, and beautiful world we inhabit, rendered with clarity and care.
Across these pages, Alok Sinha bears witness to a life shaped by place, memory, migration, and faith. Readers have called these poems heartfelt, brave, tender, and uplifting. Immigrant communities will recognize the ache of leaving, the puzzle of belonging, the daily negotiations of language and identity. Others will find joy in poems that trace a path toward God—quiet prayers, second beginnings, the grace that follows loss.
Who this book is for:
Readers who enjoy lyrical, image-driven poetry that is clear yet layered.
Immigrants and children of immigrants seeking resonance in themes of home, departure, and return.
Career professionals climbing the ladder who may see their own struggles of ambition, belonging, and renewal reflected in these pages.
Anyone drawn to poems that wrestle with fragility yet end with a hand outstretched toward grace.
God of Second Chances is a lyrical journey through the Urban Northwest—streets washed in rainlight, ferries sliding across dark water, mountains keeping quiet counsel. These poems invite readers to see and feel the fragile, complex, dangerous, and beautiful world we inhabit, rendered with clarity and care.
Across these pages, Alok Sinha bears witness to a life shaped by place, memory, migration, and faith. Readers have called these poems heartfelt, brave, tender, and uplifting. Immigrant communities will recognize the ache of leaving, the puzzle of belonging, the daily negotiations of language and identity. Others will find joy in poems that trace a path toward God—quiet prayers, second beginnings, the grace that follows loss.
Who this book is for:
Readers who enjoy lyrical, image-driven poetry that is clear yet layered.
Immigrants and children of immigrants seeking resonance in themes of home, departure, and return.
Career professionals climbing the ladder who may see their own struggles of ambition, belonging, and renewal reflected in these pages.
Anyone drawn to poems that wrestle with fragility yet end with a hand outstretched toward grace.
God of Second Chances
It came rolling down the hills,
Engulfing meadows, houses, the lake,
Paralyzing inhabitants, suffocating voices—
Fragments of memories like thick white fog.
Cold fingers creep along branches,
White frost drying up veins,
Throat dry, breath tortured,
Under steely blue eyes.
Broken promises and holy oaths.
Agape—priest had preached—
Words of Love spoken with no integrity.
Tree burnt before ever bearing fruit.
American dream in stark sunlight,
Acres of lawn and flowerbeds—
Yet lonely nights sitting next to you,
No one to hear stories of the heart.
Hope, dreams, and lust waftingup and down,
Watching tube for hours on end,
Crash again and again on daily shores,
Life lived in shadowy duplicity.
Vigor from liquor and play of words,
Friends made and lost, every day.
Crushing weight of having no one,
Floating only by a thread of hope.
Years go by like water in the slough.
True friends run along in pouring rain.
Jugs of Margarita and Drunken songs
Cover the sorrow like forest on rocky islands.
Come now, and come today.
Much storm and night has passed.
I hear the sounds of a child playing.
This is real and not a dream.
For there is a God of Second Chances,
Who mends heart and soothes broken souls,
Sprouting green on arctic slopes,
Lifts grey to bring out the rays.
Winter 2012
At nearly 250 pages, Alok Sinha’s God of Second Chances is a massive debut collection from a poet of considerable talent and ambitious scope. Written over a number of years, these poems read as an account of authentic modern humanity, but with resonances that also call to mind some of poetry's oldest traditions.
Sinha demonstrates tremendous craftsmanship across poetic genres. He seems equally comfortable writing in short lyrics and longer interpersonal narratives or character sketches. And his eye and heart and voice are insightfully tuned to an array of topics. Love, nature, socio-cultural critique, the COVID-19 pandemic, and human resilience populate these poems, receiving impressive reflective attention in every instance. In some cases, Sinha calls upon gestures that read as Romantic or Romantic-adjacent. In others, the poet deploys structures and focus that read as characteristically 21st century. And this diversity enriches the work, suggesting not only Sinha's dexterity as an artist but also his breadth as a student of poetic history.
Still, across this enviable range, Sinha retains a singular, measured voice. Impressive for a debut, the speaker of these poems is the very model of confident, controlled poetic perspective. Sinha knows and trusts his voice, building it out of sharp, intentional diction. Rich, precise adjectives populate every carefully constructed line. And the end result is a speaker we interpret as, not only eloquent, but wise.
There are aspects of this collection that feel risky but ultimately pay off. Sinha is not afraid of regular use of anachronisms like "nay" and "nary," words that, in less capable hands, might read as corny or mock-poetic. In Sinha's work, they are (like any other word here) the right tools for the job. There are also poems that unashamedly mix metaphors. But rather than appearing sloppy, these pieces take full advantage of teasing out the intersections between various related images and figurative ideas.
In crafting this review, I anticipated making the critique that the length of the collection would be its undoing, that the sheer mass of this debut volume would result in an uneven and tangled collage. But there is exquisite control over the world and themes and craft of God of Second Chances. Sinha has accomplished something truly special in this triumphant poetic introduction.