PVPF 2024

Interview with Devangshree Saini, Author of Broke Healed and Loved

I wrote poetry for the very first time when I was eighteen. Before that, I just read and appreciated them. That poem was about love; it is included in the book also.
on Jul 06, 2023

Frontlist: What inspired you to write a collection of poems centered around the themes of love, breaking, and healing?

Devangshree: First of all, my life is my greatest inspiration. All the poems written in the book, directly or indirectly, deal with the ups and downs and difficult and sweet moments of my life. It explains what I have thought during sleepless nights. Although every poem has its own separate story behind it, when I read my poems once, I saw that these are the things all of us have faced or have seen people around us dealing with. It was to console them, to make my voice reach their hearts, and to give them a glimpse of hope with my words. However, there are people I've mentioned in other interviews who have inspired me throughout the work.

Frontlist: The title of your book, "Broke, Healed, and Loved," suggests a journey from pain and hardship to love and healing. Can you elaborate on the overall narrative arc or structure that connects the poems in the collection?

Devangshree: Yeah, as I've mentioned already, a chain has been created to explain to readers that getting broken, dealing with dejection, or unwanted difficult times is a part of everyone's life. Then we must try to heal from it, to know that living isolated is of no use. We must understand that pain is a part of our life and can never leave it behind. We have to accept and walk through it. And in the path, we need to learn to love ourselves as passionately as we love others. It has been achieved by creating a chain of these themes as "broken, healed, and loved." Poems start with the theme of broke and lead to the poems emphasizing the process and need to be healed, and then the end poems of the theme loved have been written based on broken and lost feelings again to form a chain, which keeps repeating itself till our death. It also represents one's life.

Frontlist: How did writing the poems in "Broke, Healed, and Loved" help you navigate your own emotional journey?

Devangshree: I wrote poetry for the very first time when I was eighteen. Before that, I just read and appreciated them. That poem was about love; it is included in the book also. Then gradually, it became necessary for me to pen down my thoughts, whether cheerful or despondent. It feels more downhearted now if I'm unable to scribble my chaotic head on the paper. The thing which disappoints me makes a home in my heart and my mind. My overthinking stops only when I scribble it somewhere and then find peace. Many people ask me the reason behind these loving and broken poems. They ask me if I have ever loved someone. If yes, What was the name? Are you in a relationship? Are you single? Or did someone break up with you? etc…etc…etc… There's only one answer I would like to give them - We all have loved someone at least once in our lives, it doesn't matter if it was a success or not, but we all have. The same did I. I am also a human being. If you have never loved someone in your entire life, if you have never felt something, I'm sorry to say, but you're not a human. It is just that I don't wish to explain, expose or spread every detail of my life to everyone.

Frontlist: The book contains a mix of both intense and uplifting poems. How do you ensure a balance between the emotional weight and the moments of hope within the collection?

Devangshree: It was not decided when I was writing the poems that there should be encouraging words or devastating emotions only. It was not pre-decided at all. In fact, I've written in a natural way as things were coming to me in the past years. Our lives are full of complex emotions and feelings, and it is not like we are dealing with dejections only or there're just celebrations in one's life. It is never like that. I deal with all - sorrow, exciting moments, and sweet ones. One day when my thick diary was half filled with the words, I sat and read them all, one by one. While reading them, I felt they are expressing the emotions we all encounter in our lives. Therefore, I categorized it into three major themes they were based on, i.e., breaking, healing, and loving. In short, the categorization of poems in the book was intentional, but when they were written, even I didn't know it would end like this.

Frontlist: Did writing these poems help you gain new insights or perspectives on love, breaking, or healing?

Devangshree: Of course, they did. My most loving realization was that-

"We all are broken creatures,

hopelessly hopeful

that we might get

the love, we think,

we deserve."

Frontlist: How do you envision your poems resonating with individuals who may be going through their own experiences of love, breaking, and healing?

Devangshree: I hope somewhere, someone dealing with love, breaking, or healing might find some hope or inspiration in these poems. If they know what love is, I hope it'll encourage them to love more passionately. I hope it will caress their scars to reduce their pain, and if not, I hope it'll provide some strength to accept and develop through it.