In a culture of more, it is hard to sell the concept of less. The Tao Te Ching teaches us, “In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped.” In the same vein, 19th-century American naturalist, poet, philosopher, and transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, once said, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” Neera Kashyap’s poetry collection, The Art of Unboxing , embodies and draws inspiration from this principle. The collection, which charts the journey of the body, mind, and soul, uncovers poetic expressions down to their core essentials under twelve groupings.

While each image in her poems accurately reflects physicality – sensations, movement, and colour – they ulti

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