When I Make Space to Pause – A Poem

When I Make Space to Pause by Shreya Manna So. When I make space to pause, I listen. The bones at the base of my neck are instruments, Clicking and clacking and croaking under the weight of an uneasy head. My feet oscillate. Drumsticks on a d-d-d-d-drum roll. The mind scans and measures each line…

Twilight Kissed: A Poem

Hi readers! This is a poem about the sky, in particular those skies that inspire us to just look up in dumbstruck wonder. Hope you enjoy it (see full poem below the image). Twilight Kissed by Shreya Manna Who wove this fabric, this work of art That stretches across the sky? Is it a sheet…

How to Fix a Broken Human: A Poem

I’m in a new apprenticeship – Not any intellectual shit, Reading ‘how to be a human’ lit: so flip to page 1, where I find it hard, really no way I can discard, this overconfidence in my inferiority. Too many syllables, (may not be believable) but it’s true. I cannot see the “awesome kid” inside…

Words and Music #2: Where is Home? (A Poem)

Inspired by the Cloud Atlas End Title Where is home? Nothing stays still. Usually I run towards the horizon, and time plays tag with me Pulling me forward, and forward And forward. One day, I think, I’ll say: tag! But I’ll be tagged myself, and it will be time to leave this world. But sometimes…

Words and Music

Hello, it’s been a while since I last posted! I’ve been away to focus on my first term of second year studying English at The University of Oxford, as well as mental health. On one hand, I’ve been doing a lot of academic writing these past few months – such is the nature of the…

Union

Do you know what the device you are holding is made of? I didn’t, until the thought occurred to me when I was writing this blog post. A few clicks later, I arrived at my laptop manufacturer’s website to look for more details. It turns out that the parts made of aluminium and tin are…

Realising the Truth Can be Difficult (Part Two)

Mental health: can it be solved just within the mind?

Realising The Truth Can be Difficult (Part One)

It seems so simple: all the human population has to do to end injustice of any sort is realise that all life was made intrinsically equal. I don’t mean people are all equal in terms of biology, wealth, socioeconomic status, physical beauty according to current standards or any of that transactional stuff. I’m talking about…

Shlaime (Noun): A Poem by Shreya Manna

I had conflicting feelings about sharing this poem. The seeming atmosphere of outrage around us doesn’t seem to encourage self-reflection. Almost everyone will have seen memes about the ways in which 2020 has been a catastrophic year – a deadly disease transforming work, if not stopping it all together, the Black Lives matter movement catching…

Prose in the Time of a Pandemic (An Essay)

A post about the role that blogging, writing and the study of Literature plays during a pandemic like coronavirus.

About Me

This is just a short excerpt for the about page.

Start Here

Where does one begin when face-to-face, erm, screen-to-screen with a teenager with a passion for all things wordy? If you’re asking this question, I’ve already answered it for you in these few pages. About Me My Mission (coming soon) Paradise Prose Blog Manifesto Copyright Notice

Thinking in Zebra Mode – and Literature

By: Shreya August 3, 2019August 5, 2019

Life, Reading, Writing in the Real Worldcriticism, essay, interpretation, psychology, Reading, WritingLeave a Comment

Reading Literature is more than just a question of books; it’s a question of our worldview, our endless mental assumptions. This post is an attempt at becoming conscious of my own Achilles heel – black and white thinking.

Home: A Poem

I wrote this poem in light of the events in the news recently that have made the word ‘home’ a politically charged one, and also as a memory of my personal experiences that put into question what home might be.

Literary Theory: Why Should a Young Writer Care?

By: Shreya July 14, 2019

Reading, Start Hereacademia, critical, english, literary theory, literature, studies, study, Terry eagleton, university, WritingLeave a Comment

Why should I be spending my summer holidays reading Terry Eagleton’s ‘Introduction to Literary Theory’? The unglamorous reason, of course, is to acclimatise myself to the looming rigours of studying English at university. Another reason is anxiety: count yourself lucky if you can sit in one place without your mind running wild. Mine, meanwhile, needs…

An English Literature Workshop with Myself, Age 14

Humbling, funny and cringeworthy – that was my experience of writing this scene imagining myself as a mentor to a teenage version of myself. For all the earnest young writers and English students out there!

Breathe In Dawn, Breathe Out Starlight: A Poem

By: Shreya June 29, 2019

Uncategorizedbreath, breathe, creative, dawn, fight, inspiring, nature, original, poetry, powerful, WritingLeave a Comment

Breathe in Dawn, Breathe out Starlight – some poetic observations on the endless intelligence and regeneration of the natural world around us.

The Dress: A Fairytale…Or Is It? – A Short Story by Shreya Manna

By: Shreya June 22, 2019June 26, 2019

Writingcreative, damsel, dress, fairytale, fantasy, Featured, knight, mental health, perfectionism, princess, short story, story, WritingLeave a Comment

In childhood, it’s possible for us to see, even believe, in the magic of fairytales. But as we grow older, there’s no reason why we can’t take our grown-up problems and laugh at them, thanks to the superpower that being human gives us: the power to tell stories. This fairytale is really a story I wrote for myself, to capture the circus of our minds that only we can hear.

Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

By: Shreya June 13, 2019July 8, 2019

ReadingLeave a Comment

One more exam, and then the freedom to write blog posts beckons! (can you tell that I snatched some time for this one between French revision sessions?). So, let’s talk ‘Vile Bodies’ by Evelyn Waugh. It sounds like an apt name for secondary examination organisations. It is in fact a comedy, and the satirical type.…

Requiem for 2019

By: Shreya May 18, 2019July 8, 2019

Lifebeginnings, exams, graduation, mental health, new, start, strongLeave a Comment

As the exams are around the corner, I thought I would take the opportunity to write the quintessential ‘what a year’ post. And an explosive year it has been for the class of 2019. My graduation year has been everything I needed it to be, but nothing close to what I imagined it would be.…

Unperfection, A Poem

By: Shreya April 20, 2019June 26, 2019

WritingFeatured, WritingLeave a Comment

Unperfection by Shreya Manna Teaching myself how to unperfection Reminds me of that time I tried to do A water slide and chickened out only To sheepishly return because The queue I spotted on the other side Was way too long. And I was hoping To return to earth sometime very soon. In the little…

Sapling in the Woods (A Poem)

By: Shreya March 22, 2019June 26, 2019

WritingFeatured, inspiration, mental, motivation, poem, strong, wellbeing5 Comments

Beneath my feet are crunching leaves, martyrs to the world’s law, And above me the canopy, shaking leafy branches in a tribal dance, Like a million green eyelashes in the sky’s eyes Nobody is listening. The gnarled limbs of the trees spread to claim the sky Gather the sun like gold, loot, I look up…