From the CRITIC POINT OF VIEW:

TWO CHILDREN AND THE SINGING BIRD - by Venugopala Soraba is a collection of songs in the free verse. I call them songs because the poet is so innocent of tricks and where he is deliberately engaged in playing a winning game, he does not show the arrogance of a thinker posing to adumbrate some truth.

"the child traces the image of a bird
that has perched on the tree top
in the shadow..."

Some images like smiling children, dancing, singing birds, trees in blooms point to a world of innocence where songs rise and fade away leaving a sweet resonance. Yet he can be at times frightening where he probes into the nature of man's existence caught up in a flux and all the problems of becoming, promises that never kept and aspirations never consummated.

"when lost in a crowd
the gain can be superficial"


Mr. Soraba is primarily a poet who sings of existence, but his music is not frail or tremulous; at times his tone has the toughness of a mind grappling with the unyielding problems. His lyric grace is married to a tough reasonableness.

A. Russell
British Poet & Critic