When I began my journey in poetry, it was simply an attempt to recreate some of the pieces I had been exposed to in my school literature classes. I considered creating poetry a challenge to test my abilities to replicate the works of the great literary virtuosos of the past in the English Belle Lettres canon.

The gradual construction of a sizable number of poems did not efface its presence on me until quite recently when I realized that I had produced more than a dozen poems. As I read my poems chronologically, I can observe the paced shift in my writing style and preferred themes.

I hope, you, the reader, will also be able to notice the inclusion of more and more themes as you read on. Poetry has never genuinely been about sending a message; poetry must be lissom and lithe and roll off the tongue like a drop of rain.

Hence, concepts such as the meter and rhymes have been quintessential in fabricating these works. I am greatly influenced by particular motifs in modern culture and the vivid and whirling dreams that my brain has construed over the past few years.

Only in an attempt to pen down these dreams with sufficient grandiloquence have some of these poems come to fruit. I hope you enjoy my works as much as I enjoyed writing them.

I have always expected that someday my works would be analyzed as old works are examined today. Still, though I have far to go to achieve such stature, I hope this may be a stepping stone.

Taran Balakrishnan is a Class XI student at Sishya School, Adyar, in Chennai, India. An academically brilliant teenager with a plethora of interests and skills, he is an avid reader and writer with a natural literary flair for poetry.

Taran is a keen musician who plays Carnatic flute, western piano and guitar and is self-taught in Jalatharangam. He is also a sportsman, playing tennis at the national level in India, football and tabletennis.

Taran is a terrific public speaker, an accomplished actor who frequently stars in theatrical productions' solo performances, and a playwright. He wrote his first murder mystery novel, "The Blackn'd Owl", at 14, and it was published by CreaPlay in Feb 2022.

He is currently writing another book in the Indian historical fantasy genre. Foreword by Dr.

T. Sumathi (Thamizhachi Thangapandian) Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha, India.

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