Screaming Whispers

 “I am trying to deal with the pressure,

I am trying to keep it all together.

On a capricious sea, I'm brewing emotions,

Thrust about, I'm like an unanchored ship in the ocean.”

– Shreya Vijay, Therapy Session

📝I received an e-Book of this story in exchange for a fair review!📝

Poetry collections have always made up a fair portion of the books I read each year, and that has remained true throughout this year and the last. Recently, social media platforms like Instagram have provided a great place for being introduced to new and aspiring poets, both in the UK and internationally, and it is through there that I was introduced to Screaming Whispers by Shreya Vijay.

I believe this is the third poetry anthology to be released by the author, and it displays a lot of polish and thoughtfulness. The book is laid out cleanly and crisply, with the opening poem establishing the core concept of the work. This is then followed by three distinct chapters: Disclosure, Exploration, and Commitment to Action. Within these, Screaming Whispers offers a powerful and emotionally driven collection of pieces, and feels deeply personal to the author as a result.

One of the central themes of this book is how the very act of writing can be akin to therapy, a way to express emotions that might otherwise be difficult or even impossible to articulate, and I think this concept is conveyed very well. The opening poem, aptly titled Therapy Session, lays the groundwork for this theme, and sets the overall tone for the introspective and reflective collection which follows.

From this bold opening piece, Vijay goes onto explore a great number of equally challenging themes – from emotional and physical abuse through to anxiety, insecurities, and methods to deal with them. There are also poems on love and relationships in those titled High School Sweethearts and The Kiss, on society’s ridiculously high standards of perfection in You Have to Be Perfect, and even those which delve into the realm of the psychological and the horrifying with In My Head and the Dead of Night respectively.

Throughout all of these poems, Shreya’s writing style is both accessible and engaging, and conveys her thoughts and feelings well. I think the Exploration chapter was my favourite overall – the pieces in this section were extremely varied, nuanced and unique. Each section was powerful in its own regard though, and complimented one another well.

I did sometimes feel that the collection would’ve benefited from more variety in terms of structure, as they mostly adopted the form of rhyming couplets, and occasionally the tempo of a poem was thrown off by a shaky rhyme here and there. Even with that point taken into account however, this is an accomplished and insightful read, infused with sincerity and feeling in every piece.

VERDICT: Screaming Whispers provides a heartfelt, affecting collection of works from an emerging and talented poet. There’s genuine, raw emotion on display throughout, and Vijay does not shy away from confronting some difficult topics head-on. A terrific read overall, one that displays a lot of imagination and establishes a poet with a great deal of future potential.

It’s a ⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from this reviewer. I also want to say a humongous thank you to Shreya Vijay for providing a copy and giving me the chance to read and review it.