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Vikas Parihar lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He graduated with a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, specializing in System Design, Power Systems, and Control Systems from California State University, Los Angeles. He studied Management, Leadership, and Negotiation at Harvard Business School and the MIT Sloan School of Management in Massachusetts. He is the author of short stories, poems, songs, novellas, and novels.
He started writing at the age of 14. His first poem was an existential observation of his surroundings and an inquiry about the absolute. Many of the poems included in his collections were written over the last two decades.
His published works include nine poetry collections: "The Elements of Beauty," "The Beautiful Memories," "A Love Letter to Time," "Poems for Young Eyes and Curious Minds," "A River in My Heart," "The Poems and the Poet," "Time," "The Poems of Everyday," and "The Absolute, the Cause of All Causes: Lord Krishna, His Devotees, and His Abode," as well as a short story collection, "The Modern Man." His works have received positive reviews and admiration from Readers' Favorite, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly's BookLife.
His books are available in twelve countries on Amazon websites, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Japan, Canada, and Australia. His books are also sold in the United Kingdom by Waterstones Booksellers.
Reviewed by Viga Boland for Readers' Favorite
When I read A River in My Heart, a collection of 71 poems by Vikas Parihar, I immediately realized what’s been missing from my reading choices for several decades now. What a superb pleasure to discover not only a prolific poet but an excellent one. A River in My Heart is a beautiful celebration of life; our own, and that of the world around us. Does Parihar inundate us with those usual, same-old descriptions of scenery, or drown us in forlorn reflections of a poet lonely for acceptance or recognition of his talents? Not at all. Instead, his subjects are often unexpected and, in fact, far removed from the usual poetry topics. For instance, have you come across other poets who can, in 6-8 verses, transform the activity and functions of scientific elements like photons, neutrons, protons, and electrons into poetry, e.g. “In the fiery cores of stars/where fusion ignites/Protons meld together/in brilliant lights.” WOW!
Elsewhere, Parihar pays tribute to a maple tree, not just for its beauty but because it can teach us “to stand tall in the coldest hour” so that within ourselves we can find the strength “to weather life’s decree.” Parihar plays the strings of our hearts as he writes of a violinist who committed suicide, a pianist who died while playing the piano in a concert hall, and the common man who spends his days running around in loops of thinking and doing. He writes poems in tribute to places like Michigan, Manhattan, and Chicago, asks readers why water evaporates, and urges us to consider the stillness of a dewdrop that “hangs suspended/a world unto itself.” Such beautiful imagery! One of the most descriptively evocative poems, and one of my favorites (I have too many to mention), is “The Fireflies” which “dance like stars fallen from eaves.” Oh, to have a camera to capture them as they “weave through the branches.” The poems in A River in My Heart are so wonderful. Fans of rhyming poetry will love this collection and marvel at Parihar’s skill with both rhythm and rhyme. But it’s also the variety of subjects this poet addresses through poetry that make this book exceptional. How does Parihar write poems so easy to read yet with messages so deep that every verse is filled with lines you want to highlight? If you’re a poetry lover, Vikas Parihar is a poet you need to discover. Then grab your highlighter.
