Welcome to my blog!
Hi, I’m Salil Jha, an author, poet, essayist, and storyteller drawn to the inner life.
My work lives at the meeting point of love, eros, memory, suffering, beauty, longing, spirituality, and the difficult task of being fully human. Some of what I write is lyrical. Some of it is reflective. Some of it is intimate and autobiographical. But all of it comes from the same impulse: to say something true with care, depth, and feeling.
The Naked Soul began as a literary project and gradually became something larger. It is now a home for poems, essays, meditations, memoir pieces, book reflections, and explorations of the hidden forces that shape a life. I write here not only to publish, but to remain in honest contact with readers.
I was born in India, and over time I have come to understand home as something both rooted and interior. Life, travel, love, hardship, study, and observation have all shaped the voice behind this site. If there is one gift that has followed me through all its seasons, it is storytelling.
I write fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and reflective prose. Again and again, I return to the same enduring themes: love and desire, devotion and distance, grief and resilience, wonder and meaning, the soul’s inward life, and the strange beauty of ordinary human experience.
I am especially interested in writing that does not merely inform, but reveals. Writing that helps us see more clearly. Writing that gives language to experiences many people feel but few know how to name.
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Naked Soul
Naked Soul is not only the title of a book. It is also the deeper spirit behind this body of work.
To me, a naked soul is one that has put down performance. One that is willing to speak without disguise. One that chooses presence over posturing and truth over self-protection. When we love deeply, we become less guarded. When we suffer honestly, we begin to see more clearly. When we write from the center rather than from the surface, something real becomes possible.
That is the atmosphere I hope this site carries.
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The Book
Naked Soul: The Erotic Love Poems
My book Naked Soul: The Erotic Love Poems is a collection of sensual, intimate, and emotionally charged poems that explore love in its many forms: longing, passion, tenderness, surrender, memory, fantasy, and devotion.
I wrote it partly because erotic poetry, at its best, can be far more than provocation. It can be symbolic, sacred, playful, psychological, and deeply human. It can give language to parts of experience that are often simplified, hidden, or reduced. I wanted to contribute something fresh to that tradition. Something lyrical, sincere, and alive.
I also wrote it because poetry remains one of the most powerful forms for speaking from the heart. In a noisy world, poems still make a sacred kind of silence possible. They slow us down. They return us to image, feeling, rhythm, and inwardness.
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Why Poetry
Poetry says much with little.
Its force lies not in explanation, but in concentration. A poem can hold emotion, image, memory, contradiction, and revelation in a small space without flattening any of them. It does not always argue. It discloses. It leaves room for the reader’s own life to enter.
What cannot always be said in prose can sometimes be said in poetry. A poem can move like prayer, like desire, like grief, like a flash of understanding. That is why I continue to return to it.
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Themes That Matter to Me
Across the site and across my work, I return often to a few enduring concerns:
- love, intimacy, and erotic feeling
- poetry and literary beauty
- philosophy, spirituality, and the search for meaning
- memoir, memory, marriage, and family life
- suffering, resilience, and the soul’s response to hardship
- books, ideas, and the inner architecture of a life
- health, longevity, and the future of being human
These are not separate compartments to me. They are parts of the same human search.
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A Note to Readers
I do not think of the reader as a spectator. I think of the reader as a companion in attention.
If something on this site speaks to you, I am glad you found it. If a piece stays with you, return to it. If it moves you, feel free to leave a comment or write to me. The best writing creates not only expression, but recognition.
And if you would like to stay connected, join the email list through the site. That is still the best way to keep in touch and hear about new work.
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Connect with Sal
For questions, speaking engagements, media inquiries, or other correspondence, please use the Contact page.
Connect with me directly on my Facebook, X (Twitter), Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
Thank you for being here.
Salil Jha
I am grateful, that at the ripe old age of 79, I still appreciate poetry. I think it’s because I also love quotations of certain people, and subjects. Here is one of my favorite quotes by George Eliot: “It’s never too late, to become what you might have been.” That is me, for sure. Thinking I can still create some kind of business, that will bring me a certain amount of income, but more important than that, my way of spending the rest of my life, helping others appreciate their own lives, better. Naturally, a book store would be ideal, even though it would probably not create a whole lot of income. It would be located on the ground floor of a three or four story, brownstone-type building. I would live on the second floor and rent the other two apartments. That way, I probably wouldn’t need to use a car, very often, unless necessary. If I could also create a gym (I presently work out at Planet Fitness) that would make it, a perfect situation for me. I presently live in South Florida, where it would be too expensive to create my obove ideas. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Somewhere between Florida and New York, would be an ideal place for me. Thank you for reading this far. I truly appreciate it.