inwardstep publications

In this new collection of 260 poems created over 13 years, Cariappa Annaiah continues his reflections on life, living, and relationships as he explores body and mind.

Excerpts from the Introduction:

The focus of my poetry is relationships-personal, professional, and social. Why? Personal and professional happiness depends on the state of health of my relationship with myself, and then with others.

The poems are hyper-local. By counting from one and improving my ability to manage myself emotionally and physically, and then influencing others around me, I can make change one individual at a time, starting with myself. I keep my bar low! From my perspective, the only way to initiate long-term change is to work locally and walk the talk.

Why Irregularly Irregular?

Two reasons:

- Other than reflecting reality, my poetry and art cannot be typecast.

- Reality is unpredictable. Unlike fantasy, which is a captive of the mind and thusly malleable, ductile, and predictable since we are in charge, reality is our captor; we are at its mercy; it shapes us like putty and grudgingly yields to our hopes and aspirations.

And, why the warning for a reflective audience?

Again, reflecting reality, and different from my previous collections, these poems explore all nooks and crannies of the mind and body. From my perspective, refusing to identify and address elephants in the room and denying that sex is a physiological urge is the root of a lot of personal and social ills.