'Even Paradise is purging itself...' is a collection of 21 poems that capture the essence of my lived experiences, heartbreaks, delusions and fantasies. The book is mainly dominated by the text and uses visuals to aid the poetic depictions. The book was created to depict and express my innermost fears, and intense sad and or happy experiences, both through words and accompanying visuals. Furthermore, I wanted the book to impact the readers' innermost thoughts and subconscious emotions, and appeal to them the relatability of human fantasy and vulnerability.

This book was created as a part of the class 'The Poetic Voice'. I was mentored by facilitator Jeena Mary Chacko in writing the poems; as to their content, context, personalization, style and literary language.

While writing down the poems, I reflected within what topics and emotions I wanted to portray. The course guided us through several different forms of poetry, and I compartmentalized each idea I wanted to show to an appropriate form of poem. Further on, I was mentored on how to delve into personal experiences and grasp poetic content from them. I ideated a couple of drafts for each poem, which were then corrected according to language, structure and meaning with Jeena's help.

I drew upon my innermost emotions and delicate thoughts for creating the poems. I wanted an unseen side of my subconscious to reflect through the poetic collection, acting as a release and realization for me consciously. Understanding my thought patterns, memories, sorrows, wants, and transforming them into words that could be interpreted in a similar way was a challenging task during creation. Added below are a few images that show some of my thought process during writing the poems.

To make the book, I first curated my collection of poems in such a way that the flow and impact of their order in the book conveyed the 'hit' or emotions I wanted the readers to feel. 

I designed the book using Adobe InDesign. I created a mood board based on the spirit of the poems, and ideated thematic colors for the book. Since this was my first time designing a book, I struggled a bit at the beginning with the alignments, page numbers and styles of font. I wanted illustrations to aid with the reader's imagination. I therefore visualized each of my poems, and used illustrations intuitively for them. I created the illustrations using Adobe Illustrator. 

The process of compiling, designing and illustrating the book within a limited time frame was challenging for me, but the end result felt well worth it. 

The book creating process inculcated within me passion for literary endeavors. I am currently working on visually improving the design of the book, and also reaching out to publication companies for the publication some of the poems written in the book. After some improvements, rectifications and additions, I aim to work with publication companies to publish this book in the near future.