About the Book

The Precious Ordinary is a lustrous meditation on what it means to be alive—flecked with light, fragmented, and full of feeling. Guided by the poet’s quiet conviction that poetry can survive anything—and help us survive too—this collection holds out the flame of creation against the darkness of daily existence.

These are not just verses, but invitations—to dream wildly and to live with just a little more curiosity and courage.

In these pages, you are asked to do only one thing—to sum up the terrible beauty of being alive.

the blue notes of this existence—

the candles and cathedrals of daily living:

the midnight pathways between memory and the metal

scent of your own heedless hope:

find it here.

find it with a resolute face at the riverbank of your dreams;

offering you a mirror: a map—and a way through your own wounds.

~ Trishala Niranjana Vardhan