Title: Remnants: A Journey Through Grief, Love and Becoming
Author: Aarti Upadhyay
Publisher: Libresco Feeds
Pages: 102
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Grief has no rulebook. It arrives unannounced, sits in silence, and often leaves in fragments—if it ever leaves at all. In Remnants: A Journey Through Grief, Love and Becoming, debut author Aarti Upadhyay doesn’t attempt to tame grief, nor does she pretend to understand it completely. Instead, she offers what few dare to—companionship in the quiet ache, and poetry that bleeds truth.
This stirring collection of poems is neither dramatic nor overly embellished. Its strength lies in its stark honesty. The verses feel like whispered confessions scribbled in the margins of a diary—a raw excavation of love, loss, and the reconstruction of self. What makes Remnants unique is its refusal to offer closure. It does not promise a neat resolution but rather honours the process of becoming whole again—on new terms, in new ways.
Upadhyay’s language is both accessible and lyrical. Each poem reads like a moment suspended in time, urging the reader to pause, reflect, and breathe. Her words often feel like internal monologues, the kind we have in the middle of sleepless nights. And yet, within that solitude, she creates a subtle solidarity—a quiet message: “You’re not alone in this.”
One of the most affecting qualities of Remnants is its emotional layering. Beneath the surface of grief lies tenderness. And beneath that, hope—hesitant, trembling, but still standing. Love is not romanticized here; it is shown in its messiness, its longing, its unfinished nature. Loss is not mourned with melodrama but with an intimacy that brings tears without effort.
This is not poetry for performance; it is poetry for survival.
What elevates this collection is not just the poetry but the person behind it. Aarti Upadhyay, with over 14 years in marketing and communications, is no stranger to the power of words. Her professional life has been spent shaping brand narratives—but in this deeply personal debut, she turns the spotlight inward, crafting a narrative that is vulnerable, self-aware, and profoundly human.
Her fascination with human psychology is evident in her careful observations of emotional landscapes—how we unravel, how we rebuild, and how, sometimes, we simply learn to breathe again. There’s a quiet dignity in her acceptance of emotional complexity. She doesn’t glorify pain but treats it with reverence.
It’s not surprising that a woman who believes dogs exemplify the purest form of love brings the same quiet warmth to her writing. There’s no cynicism here, only a deep-seated longing to understand and to be understood. And in that attempt, she allows her readers to do the same.
Remnants is not just for those who have lost someone. It is for anyone who has ever felt adrift, who has ever questioned their place in a world that has shifted beneath their feet. It is for the seekers, the survivors, and those still learning to hold their own hand.
In an age where social media often compresses complex feelings into a few characters or reels, Remnants dares to stretch time—to linger on an emotion, to sit with it, to ask it what it wants.
If your world feels like it’s ended, this book is proof that perhaps it hasn’t. Perhaps it’s only begun to change. And maybe, just maybe, that’s where becoming begins.