Book Review: Jasmines In Her Hair

Reviewed by Susan Morris

Powerful love poems for the everyday romantic

You don’t need a deep understanding of poetic form or an MFA in creative writing to connect with and experience all the good feelings Kalpesh Desai has created in these lovely poems.

I grew up with a love of poetry, and if I think of where that love came from, I’d say it was everywhere, whether as a nursery rhyme sung by my mom, a lyric we butchered as we jumped rope, a rap a friend practiced at school, or a song on the radio that stuck in my head. Over time, as life became more complex, writing snippets of feelings and memories became a therapeutic habit, a way to quickly capture a fleeting sensation before it was lost.

For some people who don’t consider themselves poets, poetry can feel inaccessible. I have sometimes felt that way, too, especially when reading a poem that doesn’t quite resonate but that others have critically acclaimed. In nearly all poetry, a lot is left unsaid. A reader must interpret a poet’s desires to ascertain the intent and risk being the one who has misunderstood. Multi-faceted significance is one of the beautiful things about poetry that can broaden its impact and heighten emotional connection. The same thing that makes poetry beautiful can make it slightly daunting to review. Thankfully, that isn’t the case with Jasmines In Her Hair. 

In my eyes, Desai succeeds in creating a book that is an “avenue to find access to what love looks, feels, and sounds like in the mind of a poet.” Here, it’s made clear that everybody has a poet in them. I’d bet most people have found themselves waxing poetic at times, especially when it comes to love, an emotion so powerful, all-consuming, and abstract that it can be endlessly explored and perhaps never fully captured.

These poems are snippets of love expressed in powerful lines. Some are lyrical, but they aren’t primarily rhythmic poems. The meaning is sometimes sacrificed to the rhyme, but this makes the poems all the more human. I journeyed through these pages and felt immersed in another human’s very real understanding of love. Poetry, no matter the length, has the opportunity to take the reader on a trip somewhere singular. In the case of these poems, it almost always does.

Whether you consider yourself a poetry enthusiast or someone who might view verse with a raised eyebrow, you will be surprised and entertained by this collection of love poems, just like I was.

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