Listening for Winter is Karthik’s quest for meaning, rooted in its exploration, and soaring in its many discoveries- a journey we undertake with him. This exploration is often brutally honest, but not gratuitous, and never without the balm of attendant wisdom. These poems are intricate stories, scenes from life, and conversations and missives to and from the living universe. What binds the collection is the unflinching attention to life and its eventualities. The poetry constantly invokes and rebukes life's grander themes, and what we take away is a synchronous view of life's biggest contradictions. In Karthik’s world no one is important and yet everyone is. Karthik's poetry traverses through calm and calamity without ever losing sight of the bigger picture. Listening for Winter marries the unkindness of life to the little kindnesses, binding the calm to the storm. And that is the gift it leaves you with: perspective, and wisdom.