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Notes on poetry
nisheedhi
The Poet-Photographer
Notes on poetry
nisheedhi
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Contents
“Fog”- A poem by Carl Sandburg(1878-1967) 1
An Idiot’s Tale 22
Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 40
Circles of light 41
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 68
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Love the single image of the cat in the poem. The fog comes in
silent feline movements, sits on its silent haunches over the city and
harbor and moves on ,as the morning grows to the day. Beautiful!
1
“Defunct”- A poem by e.e.cummings
Defunct
Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death.
by e.e.cummings
The only thing one can do now is to ask Mr. Death a report of
what he is like now because he is defunct. He is no longer in
use here, you see.
2
He is like the old gramophone which played such fine music
then but is now no longer in use or operation. Presently it is in
the attic. We want to know how it is faring there.
So, Mr. Death, will you tell us how you like him?
(aside)
( inner skepticism)
3
“When lovely woman stoops to folly” -By Oliver Goldsmith
4
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
5
“To the historians” By Walt Whitman
6
Leaving not a rack behind
7
(also included in the Shakespeare page)
8
“Man Was Made To Mourn” By Robert Burns
…………
Look not alone on youthful prime,
Or manhood’s active might;
Man then is useful to his kind,
Supported in his right:
But see him on the edge of life,
With cares and sorrows worn;
Then Age and Want – oh! ill-match’d pair -
Shew man was made to mourn.
9
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
(excerpts)
10
feeling of altruism in the human brain which makes a set of
empathy-neurons fire up when confronted with suffering by
fellow-humans. This is probably what humanity implies and
man’s inhumanity to man is the lack of it.
11
“There is no frigate like a book” By Emily Dickinson
12
“A valediction forbidding mourning” by John Donne
13
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
14
Metaphysical poems have their images drawn from sciences. An
earthquake is fearsome but the parting of their selves is like the
music of the spheres which is ever so gentle and makes absolutely
no noise..But hold.We are not going to tell you the laity of our love.
Suffice it to say that our souls are one.But if they are two they are
like the feet of a compass.She is the fixed foot who remains at the
center but leans towards which ever point he the second foot traces
on the circle..Another scientific image.
Doesn’t it strike one that the old man Donne is actually pulling
our legs? A quiet debunking of the love poetry genre of the day
seems to be going on all the time.When he uses hyperbole, I
see a glint in his eyes as he adjusts his eye-glasses and pulls
the folds of his heavy clerical cloak ! We are the laity and who
are we to share his confidences about his love life?
15
“A narrow fellow in the grass “-A poem by Emily
Dickinson (1830-1886)
(Extract)
http://www.readprint.com/work-471/A-Narr
ow-Fellow-in-the-Grass-Emily-Dickinson##
ixzz16FRXZPl4
16
Cut out all that talk about sexual fancies and Freudian
references .Look at the thought beneath the poem as plain
anthropomorphism, if you please.
17
“Batter my heart “By John Donne
The poet is asking the Holy Trinity to save him from the
clutches of Satan. The evil influence of Satan is so much that
violence has to be exercised by God to get his heart out of it.
Hence the use of the harsh words like “batter”,
“knock”,“overthrow”, ”bend your force” ,”break” ,”burn”,
”imprison” ,”ravish” etc.
18
The poet goes on to another image, this time he calls himself
wrongfully bethrothed to Satan, God’s enemy and it is for God
to forcefully extricate him by “imprisoning” him, ravishing him
and making him “chaste”. It is God’s ravishing that makes him
chaste and God’s imprisoning that makes him free.
19
The jungle husband By Stevie Smith
I love the line “Only sometimes when a tree has fallen/The sun
comes down plop, it is quite appalling” .
20
impress the society ladies in her kittie parties. A jungle husband is
so romantic!
Of course you would never want to venture into the jungle pool. The
anacondas there are not looking ill-fed!
21
An Idiot’s Tale
22
The best image is of the idiot’s tale that comes with a lot of
sound and fury .An idiot’s tale is full of sound and fury but in
the end it means nothing.
23
“Futility”- A poem By Wilfrid Owen
I love the crisp last line- “What made fatuous sunbeams toil/To
break earth’s sleep at all?” If the sun had taken so much effort to
bring to life the seeds in his home and wake the earth and now the
young soldier again and again, why does he not wake him now from
his sleep? The questions are asked with the full knowledge of their
futility. Because the sunbeams are “fatuous”,silly and dense enough
to work without purpose. Nature makes its beautiful works and when
they are destroyed, hardly cares to restore them to their life.
24
The futility of human existence is brought home beautifully in
the way the sun has dealt with the soldier at different points of
time. Its touch awoke him once, at home It always woke him ,
even in France. Until this morning and this snow. The limbs of
the soldier are so dear-achieved. Why has nature now
abandoned this exquisite piece of its work?
25
“This Living Hand” by John Keats
Whether or not it was meant for Fanny Brawne , the poem does
indeed raise gloomy thoughts . A poem written in the last years of
the young poet who knew he was dying would speak of a state of
existence in death- a hand ,now living and capable of grasping
would lie in the tomb ,cold and drained of blood. The thoughts are of
a living man projecting his existence on to an existence devoid of
life. The process of the living hand transforming to lifelessness can
only be imagined by a living man about to die. The poem makes
the reader project his own conscious life on to such an
existence as though the poet is holding his hand towards him.
26
“When I have seen the sun emerge”-Emily Dickinson
The sun has such a large role in our lives.The earth is a mere
drum rolled by little kids for fun .A beautiful image of a rolling
drum pursued by little boys in the street.
27
“Failure” By Philip Schultz
28
who showed him how to whistle
under covers, steal apples
with his right or left hand. Indeed,
my father was comical.
His watches pinched, he tripped
on his pant cuffs and snored
loudly in movies, where
his weariness overcame him
finally. He didn’t believe in:
savings insurance newspapers
vegetables good or evil human
frailty history or God.
Our family avoided us,
fearing boils. I left town
but failed to get away.
29
Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman
(Excerpt)
30
uncommon:
The first three- “click”, ”bend” ‘palm” are physical attributes of the
phenomenal woman but the last- “the need of my care” -is the
intangible quality about her which makes her the phenomenal
woman. The quiet reassurance that other people feel about her
and the natural dependence that flows from her are what
makes her the phenomenon she is.
31
“Specimen”- A poem by Philip Schultz
32
I belonged to a scintillating
and perplexing music
I didn’t expect to hear
This is the music he belongs to,not to what his father said. Finally
one belongs somewhere.
33
“He wishes for the clothes of heaven” by W.B.Yeats
Don’t we all love this poem? “Tread softly because you tread
on my dreams” :the lines are pure magic.
The the long syllables in the first two lines followed by the
clipped sounds of the third and the fourth lines(the blue and
the dim and the dark cloths/of night and light and half light)
make for fine music.
34
“My heart leaps up when I behold “-William Wordsworth
Apart from the music of the lines in iambic pentameter ,I love the
poem for the child-like simplicity of thought and its lyrical beauty.The
image I liked when I had first read the poem in school was “natural
piety” .I still dig the image. The poet is looking at Nature as a
worshiper. For him Nature herself is God. Hence the word “piety”.
The poet desires that his days are bound ‘each to each” by love for
nature.
35
“Ironic poem about prostitution” By George Orwell
Where is the irony when the poet himself speaks about it , one
begins to wonder. Irony is what emerges in a dramatic situation, not
one which is stated to emerge! But that precisely is the irony here, a
nasty sting aimed at a system where the prostitute is not in the
business for people of libertarian values to come and sympathize
with. Her purity and sadness are very inviting to our zealous
reformers no doubt but she is not the one to oblige him and fall for
his youthful passion for reform. Her helplessness is merely in the
poet’s mind because he needs her more and needs her to be
helpless. He had no sense and had to lose his heart to young
helpless prostitutes in distant Mandalay .How he wished she
36
sobbed out her sad story instead of merely upping her price for
sleeping with him from twenty to twenty five!
37
A Song for St Cecilia’s Day By John Dryden
38
These are the four highly musical stanzas from John Dryden’s A
Song for St.Celcilia’s Day. Read them aloud to feel the music of the
different instruments and their impact on human behavior. In the
first stanza the poet talks about the battle field where the soldiers
get inspired by the sounds of the trumpet and the drum.(‘double
double double beat’).In the second stanza the lovers desperation in
unrequited love is aided by the soft notes of the flute and when the
lover dies his dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. But the
softness no longer continues in the next stanza when the violins
sharply proclaim the lover’s jealous pangs .In the last one the
Church Organ plays out its inspiring Holy Love in notes that “wing’
their heavenly ways. Note how Man rises from all his baser
passions of anger and hatred in war , jealousy in love and
mundane concerns to become an angel taking on wings of
music and devote himself to the love of God.
39
Shakespeare’s sonnet 18
In my college days I did not think much of this sonnet and even
began to doubt whether it was Shakespeare’s. The imagery
appeared to be quite ordinary and looked like little more than
use of the typical Elizabethan hyperbole. Later I thought the
poet was merely being sarcastic about the charms of the
beloved. Much later, in life, I thought Shakespeare was merely
debunking the genre of love poetry of the time. I still see a
trace of irony in the way he tells the object of his love that for
all the beauty that she possesses there is only one way in
which she could be immortalized i.e. through his own poetry!
40
Circles of light
41
And worships the gods at her husband’s side.
I love the images used here for describing the colors and
textures of the glass bangles being on sale in the temple fair.
42
Toru Dutt ‘s poem “Our Casuarina Tree
(An excerpt from Toru Dutt’s Our Casuarina Tree Toru Dutt
(1856-1877) was one of the earliest Indo-Anglian poets )
43
Casuarina trees are found everywhere on the Indian coastline
.When the sea wind passes through the needle-like leaves of
clusters of these trees they make a soft hum which is cloyingly
beautiful. Here the poet sees the music as a dirge-like murmur,a
lament , an eerie speech. The poet was then still in her twenties
,pursuing higher education in England and France .I do not know
why she felt the pathos at the time.Perhaps she had the beginnings
of consumption already ,of which she would die a few years later
after her return to India.
44
The road not taken
“The road not taken” by Robert Frost is one of the better known
poems of Frost. The best lines are in the last stanza.The poem is
about a traveller who came to a fork and chose a path and later is
thinking about the path not taken.The last lines are the best part of
the poem:
Apparently the poet is not worried about the road not taken.What
matters to him is the fact that an event had happened in time in
which he arrived at the fork and took a decisive step towards taking
the less travelled road and this fact made all the difference to him.
Looked at this way ,the road not taken by him has become as
much a part of history as the road travelled by .Had the poet
not arrived here and confronted the possibility of taking the
road which he would not take ,the event would not have
happened in time.
45
“April”- A short poem by Sara Teasdale
46
(excerpts) Verses upon the burning of our house by Anne
Bradstreet(1612-1672)
47
“A girl” – a poem by Ezra Pound
The poem is based upon the theme of the myth of Daphne and
Apollo .Apollo the sun-god pursues the beautiful Daphne,the
daughter of the river-god and Daphne is transformed into a tree in
order for her to escape Apollo’s advances.
The first part is what Daphne speaks as she watches the process of
her own transformation .The second part is Apollo witnessing the
process.
48
her new identity as a tree with whom the sun god has a direct and
intimate relationship with a role in its activities of photo-synthesis.
My guess is that Apollo is saying that this whole thing -the sun-god
pursuing a girl may look like a folly to the world. The world is
apparently not aware of the transformation that such a pursuit has
brought about.
49
“The eagle” by Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson
1851
The short poem has visual beauty and harmony of words, apart
from the effective use of alliteration ‘c,-‘c’-‘c’ .Crisp mono-syllabic
words convey the swift efficiency of the eagle. The eagle‘s talons
are crooked hands and the eagle’s perch is close to the sun, ringed
with the azure world. Below is the sea with its wrinkled waves and it
will appear from the top of the crag as if the sea is crawling .The
eagle watches from the mountain’s “walls” and as soon as it spots a
prey it swoops on it with the speed of a thunder-bolt.
50
John Donne’s “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls /It
tolls for thee”
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
51
diminishes me because I am not an island but part of the continent
and if a part of the continent is lost a part of me is lost.
52
An excerpt from”My father adjusts his hearing aid” by
David Bottoms
….
http://www.bu.edu/agni/poetry/print/2008/6
8-bottoms.html
The most telling image is in the last line “The silence around his
shoulders is my mother’s arm”. Very beautiful.Does not need any
interpretation.In fact we would rather not impose any meaning on it.
53
“The last house” by Rilke
54
village,a passageway along houses.The village is expectant
because it is expecting visitors but at the some time afraid that the
people who leave the village may wander and may not return.
55
Patting the drum-hide of the night
- Andrew Oerke
Apart from the music of the repeated words “in the village”
suggesting how life repeats itself in the village, I like the simple
beauty of the image :
56
“The burnt out ends of smoky days” (T.S.Eliot’s Preludes)
57
There are thieves who steal the world the moment I turn
my back
~ Czeslaw Milosz
Excerpted from the poem Hope (Rescue)
http://info-poland.buffalo.edu/classroom/m
ilosz/trium.htm
Just the thing I had always felt in my childhood and till I grew up to
be an adult.I have ,even now, a sneaking suspicion that the world
just fizzles down the moment I turn away as though it has been
stolen by some thieves. This thief thing I had not thought of but my
own fear was of the Second Man who had always accompanied me
and created everything of this world just to spite me or in order to
teach me a lesson .Sometimes I think I exist in his dream and if he
wakes up I disappear or cease to exist.
58
Faust’s famous clock quote
“Ah, Faustus, now hast thou but one bare hour to live
And then thou must be damn’d perpetually!
Stand still, you ever moving spheres of heaven.
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair nature’s eye, rise, rise again and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
‘O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!’
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come and Faustus must be damn’d'”
Faustus who has entered into an irrevocable pact with the devil for
exchange of his soul for all the black magic powers of the devil
suddenly realizes he has just an hour to live, after which he will burn
in hell for eternity.”The clock quote” here is a favorite quote of
University Professors. The lines do not boast of rich imagery such
as you will find in Shakespeare’s plays. But the lines are a powerful
piece of dramatic speech such as one would expect in the
Elizabethan drama and when spoken on the stage they truly touch
your heart and strike a chord of sympathy for the chief protagonist
who has by his vaulting ambition brought upon himself all this
suffering .The doctor is asking that time be frozen and the sun not
59
rise and give him time to repent and save his soul. If a tragedy is
expected to bring about catharsis in the viewer, Faust’s tragedy
eminently qualifies to do this.
60
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
Cloths of heaven
By W.B.Yeats
61
“Landscapes”- a poem by John Burnside
“I speak
Of men’s passing
So rare in this arid land
That it is cherished like a refrain
Until the return
Of the jealous wind
And of the bird, so rare,
Whose fleeting shadow
Soothes the wounds made by the sun”
http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Joh
n_Burnside/7678
62
For you know only a heap of broken images
Where the sun beats or
the dead tree gives no shelter…”
63
Rubaiyat and the nubile girls
64
the winter garment of repentance is thrown and burnt to ashes.
has rich lines which have always fascinated me. Even when we
were merely looking for pictures of nubile girls .The music of the
lines makes you recite them as though they were to be a song on
your lips. They do not have pretty imagery like the other Rubaiyat
but the simplicity of the lines together with the rich resonances is
striking.
65
“The wind still blows over the Savanna”-by Charles
Bukowski
66
flounces before his
hens.”
By Charles Bukowski
The discs format in different ways but the wind blows over the
Savanna just like always and the buzzard struts before the
hens just like always .The consistency in nature contrasts with
the failure of technlogy and incompatibility of hardware and
software.
67
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
68
The dominance of the visual elements can be felt in the the words
:behold,yellow,seest,twilight,fadeth,black night,glowing,perceivst.
The image of the autumn ’-the first one with a year of time,the
second one with the day ,the third one with the moment.
69
Three out of Nine Poems on Arrival by Adil Jussawalla
(http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.p
© 1976, Adil Jussawalla
From: Missing Person
Publisher: Clearing House, Mumbai, 1976
70
3. The third one has a beautiful image “upset like water” the poet
“dives” for my favourite tree. Apparently in the gloom of the funeral
the poet is upset like “water”,like the stillness of the waters touched
by a falling leaf. The favourite tree is no longer there,although its
roots still exist. “the roots still exist” refers to the poet’s own roots in
his own childhood days spent here before his exile .
71
“Return”-A prose poem by Udayan Vajpeyi
“Two moons shine in the courtyard-one red and the other yellow”.
The moon of now and the moon of then- when father was not
transparent. The place we are in does not exist and father has
returned to this house as if it had never been destroyed and as if he
had never died.Having felt father’s presence ,brother comes down
the sky-path. But father has already returned by the same path.
72
The poem is all about return -return from the red moon of then to
the yellow moon of now,from transparency to opacity ,from
existence to non-existence and non-existence to existence.From the
other side of the table to this side of the table.
73
“You, you only, exist” -BY Rainier Maria Rilke
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/you-you-only-exist
74
definition is only a moment but exists for all time to come.
“To the beautiful moment” the poet belongs ,however much time
wears him away.He moves between one beautiful moment and
another. Then come the most beautiful lines of Rilke one has ever
come across :
“…In between
The garland is hanging in chance: but if you
take it up and up:look:
all becomes festival!”
75
“To Be Saved You Must Be Spent” by Michael Chitwood
www.poems.com/poem.php?date=13843
76
love letter ,white scraps with a dab of ink staining each one. A
delightful description of the words which may have been spoken
proclaiming love or been an obituary statement. All that can be said
for sure is that the torque of the sky has tightened .
77
“Between going and coming”- A poem by Octavio Paz
The moment wavers first between day and night .There is then
stillness, a pause. Then the moment scatters- a visual -dynamic
image.The visual elements in the poem warrant a close look
78
:”transparency” ,”circular afternoon”,”All is visible “,
“shade”,”throbbing” “ghostly theatre of reflections”, “stare”
,”scatters”. A certain wistfulnes is in the air,a lightness of being.Still
life with occasional dynamic images.”paper,book,pencil,glass/rest in
the shades of their names” .Mark the light turns the indifferent wall
into a theatre of reflections.
79
“THE POET”- by P.Lal
http://www.geocities.com/varnamala/plal.html
Of course the the poet is talking about a poet. A clumsy poet who
wears his hair like an aureole,stammers at parties,slips from a tram
and puts off the mending of a sole. But he is agile and observant
,noticing all those things like the spider’s intestines claiming
harlot,smuggler and black marketeer .In the “clicking” grin he
divines a moody world of artifice and fear.
80
The most beautiful part of the poem is the image that comes in the
second stanza .In this the poet “sees” an exaggerated poetry in the
woman’s eyes when they were just common.When the woman turns
black clouds of hair ,with a rhythmic hand weaving their silk in the
possessive sun,he sees her eyes stretch to a land lost ,as when
repentance yearns for hope and love and finds that there is none.
Delicious.The poet ,rather too quickly,divines a moody world of
artifice and fear.
One wonders if the poet is having a quiet dig at our poet friend who
is spinning fancy tales about the woman who is standing in the sun
to comb her hair.
81
“The sparks from your firesmoky eyes” by Doris Kareva
Although
it happened in another time, another film.
82
situation of that time. She had captured the paradise trees on her
film while he talked with the birds. Today is another film , another
time,another script but the glow of the sparks from her fire-smoky
eyes continues to warm the room. Together they had participated in
the joint existence of the then spatial situation but neither had
actually tasted the experience,per se or may be, they did.
83
“An Old Woman”-By Arun Kolatkar
84
You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.
http://www.geocities.com/kavitayan/arun_kolatkar.html
The old woman’s eyes are just two gaping holes filled with empty
air,with the hills and the sky.Then the cracks begin around her eyes
,spreading beyond her skin and then the hills crack, the temples
85
crack and the sky cracks and the the sky finally shatters and falls
like plate-glass. The old woman herself is shatter-proof and nothing
happens to her .Only you get instantly reduced to small change in
her hand .It is you who shatter because her eyes are already
bullet-holes which are formed with the cracks around the holes.
86
“Touch” by Octavio Paz
My hands
open the curtains of your being
clothe you in a further nudity
uncover the bodies of your body
My hands
invent another body for your body
http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/octavio_paz_touch.html
87
Loneliness” by Rainer Maria Rilke
88
their sleep as the birds started twittering and have turned their faces
to the dawn .The bodies ,which have tried to fuse together have
found nothing and in disappointment ,roll over.
When two bodies have to sleep together and find nothing except
despising each other at the end,that is when loneliness is no longer
silver slanting rain in the twittering hours but quick flowing rivers . A
beautiful poem.
89
“The Empty House” by Marjorie Agosin
you return
to the empty house
you recognize yourself
diminished between
its thresholds
you remember that dawn and the
flight
the captive gaze of the neighbors
in the perfidious ceremonies of an
unwelcome goodbye
90
you are the child who watched over the
exigencies of love
91
A nice poem .The poets family had left the country when the
war was raging and now he returns to the empty house after all
the devastation caused by the war. Two poignant thoughts of
the poet have touched me deeply.
In your language
92
93
“Words” by Anne Sexton
Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be as good as fingers.
They can be as trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.
Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.
Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren’t good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.
But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
94
things to repair.
- Anne Sexton
95
“Your Worship” by Val Vinokur
Some times one wonders if the use of imagery alone is what makes
for poetry.What about a good turn of phrase which upsets the
scheme of things ,makes you think of something other than what
comes out as the plain meaning.I don’t mean cleverness in phrasing
which apparently does not appeal to you as poetry but as mere skill
with words.Come to think of it,what is imagery but a purely
representational device used to convey the poet’s private vision.A
mere figure of speech is not poetic imagery.
I have come to like the use of the paradox in the following poem :
(Poetry Daily)
Your Worship
96
I am a stubborn priest, who knows himself
only in the dwindling oil of you,
the weeping and rebellious flame
about to die.
97
“And as in Alice” by Mary Jo Bang
98
Could she grow one from seed? Could one make a cat?
Make it sit on a branch and fade away again
The moment you told it that the rude noise it was hearing was
rational thought
With an axe beating on the forest door
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/1007/poem_180074.html
Alice cannot be in the poem because she is not Alice but a mere
metaphor.A metaphor for childhood. The problem is that the poem
is itself a metaphor.So we have a metaphor within a metaphor.The
problem is that a childhood is a metaphor for the beginning of life.
So we have a metaphor within a metaphor within a metaphor etc.,
etc,.They all nod in agreement.They see but not the girl who has her
head in the rabbit hole from whose vantage she sees her bum as a
flattened backside of a black and white panda.The girl has a stuffed
panda in the crook of her arm.If she falls in the abyss of the dark
,how would it feel like? She will hear strange creatures singing
songs where odd syllables come to a sibilant end at the end.
99
one,which is a metaphor.
100
“The Little Spring” by Ko Un
101
102
“The Wheel” by Vinda Karandikar
My soul of flesh and blood puts a long thread in the needle’s eye.
I stitch a patch on my son’s umbrella.
I pick his nose and name the pickings:
I call one “Elephant” and another “Lion.”
Someone is about to come and doesn’t. Is about
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to turn on the stairs and doesn’t.
I tickle my children,
they tickle me in turn; I laugh,
with a will; for I do not feel tickled.
It doesn’t matter.
I scan their fingers for signs:
Nine conches and one wheel.
Note: “Nine conches and one wheel” are formations of lines on the
tips of fingers which, in Indian palmistry, foretell a happy life.
http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/0
907/poem_180011.html
“makes the noise bigger than the house” is a pretty image. The
meaning works both ways.The whirring noise is higher in volume
than what the house contain.At another level the noise of the house
104
rises above the noise level of the house itself.The house creaks in
decrepitude and its doors rattle. The whirring fan makes the air into
a whirlpool of fire.In the blazing heat of mid-summer the concrete
roof sends down shafts of heat through the air stirred by the whirring
of the fan.Calmly I lean against the wall and become the
wall.”become the wall” is to become immobile against the wall
merging into its staticity. “A wounded bird on my shoulder laughs
raucously/Laughs at the very shoulder it perches on”-the laughter of
rejection,of apathy and of the hopelessness of unreturned love.
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“Women” by Bejan Matur
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They relinquish themselves to the earth
Cordially
And occasionally exude a fragrance
http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/articl
e.php?lab=WomenBejan
107
The third notable reference is to the breasts which happens
twice-once when their breasts bend to the earth and the second
time ,their breasts are referred to as “sunken”.Breasts are obviously
used to denote motherhood and they bend to the earth because
they are no longer full and have become shrunken due to the
ravages of time.
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“The Future” by Rilke
Translated by A. Poulin
But the most fascinating image is “it suffices you to deepen the
absence that we are” .Just think about it : as future grows ,the past
deepens and with it our absence.
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“KEY” by Dom Moraes
A memory of a child with brown hair and eyes and toffee spread all
over . Re-lived briefly as the key to the Victorian lock is turned and
the poet gains admittance to the seven mossed stairs and the badly
kept garden. Fifteen years later ,the child re-appears ,not as a
grown up kid or as a child frozen in time but merely as a letter
asking for his father ,who now possesses no garden , no home,not
even a key.
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The lyricism of Dom Moraes’ poems is captivating. The images are
intriguing : "postponed child","the key","two bounces,he
disappears". The key is the metaphor,the key to the memories of
the past, the key to childhood.
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“Sea Breeze, Bombay” by Adil Jussawalla
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capital ,where communities break and re-form.Still Bombay
investigates nothing (We have the example of the several scams
and bomb blasts, riots and underworld killings),ruffles no one’s
tempers and uncovers no roots.Above all, Bombay settles no one
adrift of the mainland’s histories.
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113
“STILL LIFE” by A.K.Ramanujan
114
In the painting we only see the absence of the master as suggested
by the dog sleeping on the bed.I like to imagine this scenario : the
walls are bare and decrepit with the plaster coming off and no
paint.There is a four poster bed and the sheet bears smudges of
lack of washing.There is the window through which soft light falls on
the bed .The bed has not been recently slept in.The master had got
up and and gone out and not returned .Only the dog sleeps listening
to his master’s voice which seems to be ringing in the room .The
dog is patiently waiting for the return of the master. Outside there is
the tree which stirs occasionally sending in gusts of wind.
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“If This Is All…” by Luciano Erba
Luciano Erba
translated from the Italian by Peter Robinson
116
via Poetry daily
117
“Evidence” by Mary Jo Bang
Patiently to enter.
You become the connection
Thread to the cat that lost its tail
And subsequently invented tragedy.
118
Lined up along the thread
119
Promising a future and
Lining up at the door and waiting.
120
Through the eye
Of the needle in the blankstack.
http://www.poems.com/poem.php?date=13730
121
“We Are Not Dead” by Kadhim Kaitan
122
That launched an attack on the sun
And fell in flames.
The fire now licks at our names,
Sewn together with splinters.
Munthir Abdul-Hur
translated from the Arabic by Sadek Mohammed
(Taken from Poets Daily)
123
have a quarrel with the word weeping which should perhaps be
tears .Perhaps the translation did not work out properly. The image
of the trifling child pushing the paper-boats of our lifetimes into the
waves is of course a bit worn out but the fold after fold/the sea takes
our dreams and wraps them in weeping is a pretty image. The last
image our lifetimes are withered leaves /That launched an attack on
the sun/And fell in flames is equally beautiful .One recalls Icarus
whose waxen wings have melted in the sun or more closer home
,the figure of the monkey God Hanuman who as a child mistook the
sun as a fruit and burnt his mouth red .Of course the contexts here
are different .Here the poet is talking about the people’s resistance
to a powerful invader’s might . Finally the poet says we are not
dead. We are not dead yet .(may be )we shall rise again .
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“THE HILL” by Nissim Ezekiel
125
in conversation or in bed
the rhythm comes.
And once you begin
hang on for life.
What is survival?
What is existence?
I am not talking about
poetry. I am
talking about
perishing
outrageously
and calling it
activity.
I say: be done with it.
I say:
you’ve got to love that hill.
Be wrathful, be impatient
that you are not
on the hill. Do not forgive
yourself or other,
though charity
is all very well.
.
The poem has some very nice images. I particularly like the image
of the wild flowers that burst out of the rock crevice to burn briefly.
The metaphor of the hill runs throughout: the hill is normative ; the
hill is for the sport of climbing , not for musing on from a distance
and in the end ,you flow into another kind of time which is the hill
you thought you always knew. The image of–flowing into another
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kind of time does not seem to jell with the idea of flowing into the hill
unless one imagines our consciousness entering the hill like a kind
of stream flowing through the hills.
Do not rest
in irony or acceptance.
Man should not laugh
when he is dying.
In decent death
you flow into another kind of time
which is the hill
you always thought you knew.
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“SONG” by John Donne
128
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
The poetry of John Donne is cleverly crafted ideas , argued out with
a mocking tone .It is as though Donne is making fun of all the love
poetry of the time. Here the mocking is not directed merely at the
imaginary mistress who is supposed to be a difficult lady but the
whole genre of love poetry which was mushy and sentimental.
The debunking goes on throughout the poem. “And find what wind/
Serves to advance an honest mind “is an obvious reference to the
travels and sea-voyages one undertook to explore new territories
but the way in which it is sung “And find what wind….”,you can
almost see the mischief in the poet’s manner.
And find
What wind
And swear
No where
Yet she
Will be
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of the later years would practice. Instead it is clever juxtaposition of
ideas and carefully wrought rhythms. The juxtaposition of ideas is a
familiar occurrence in metaphysical poetry. In this poem the poet is
talking about the inconstancy of a woman, which is a mere idea and
chances are that the theme is not rooted in the poet’s own
experiences. The juxtaposition is achieved by first talking about
several impossible things one would try to achieve to obtain a
woman’s love and then at the end say it emphatically that all this
may happen but the woman’s love will not remain constant.
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Poetry by Du Mu (9th century Chinese Poet)
131
even a friendly smile
all night
it weeps
little wax tears.
The poem by the renowned Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty (9th
century)is a delightful love poem .”All night ,it weeps little wax
tears”-a beautiful image.
Country Journey
A poem by Du Mu
weeping willows
stir softly in the wind
132
under pelting raindrops
the fishpond’s filled with circles
133
“The Prelude” – by Tomas Transtromer
134
(Translation of “Preludium.” First published in 17 Dikter (Stockholm,
1954). By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright 2007
by Rika Lesser. All rights reserved.)
I love this image of consciousness grappling with the world like the
hand grasping a sun-warm stone.
135
“Old Woman With a Goiter”- By Erica Levy MacAlpine
136
as they move their heads.
The vividness of the description of the cows and the old woman is
almost painting-like.
137
“POEM” By Gieve Patel
What is it between
A woman’s legs draws destruction
To itself? Each war sees bayonets
Struck like flags in
A flash of groin blood.
The vicious in-law
Places spice or glowing cinder
On that spot. Little bird-mouth
Woman’s second,
Secret lip, in-drawn
Before danger, opened
At night to her lover.
Women walk the earth fully clothed,
A planetary glow dispelling
The night of dress,
A star rising where
Thigh meets belly: target spot
Showered
With kisses, knives.
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her night of dress and a star rises where thigh meets belly but the
target spot is showered with kisses and knives.
I like the poem for its tautness of construction and the amazing
economy of words which make the poem sound almost
classical.Some very rich lines like little bird-mouth…,bayonets
struck like flags in a flash of groin blood ,a star rising where thigh
meets belly,target spot showered with kisses and knives make the
poem a memorable one.
139
“For Hans Caroussa” by Rilke
First ,when I saw the poem I thought Rilke was being merely clever
.With usages like “losing too is still ours” I thought Rilke was out of
form.In the second line Rilke got back to his original form. So I think.
Forgetting still has a shape in the kingdom of transformation
sounded so much like an epigrammatic saying. But actually it
comes out as a poetic image if you look at it closely.Reality is built
by consciousness which works only by remembering .Things exist
only if your mind perceives them. Forgetting things is consciousness
not recognising reality which means that forgetting has no shape or
feel but in the world of constant flux when matter remains the same
but only transforms into other matter or energy forgetting does not
mean things losing their shape or form .The forgetting of things
continues to circle around us although we may not be the at the
centre of the circle . We are not the centrifuges in which energy
flows from the centre to the perimeter but the curve remains around
140
us impinging on our cconsciousnes.
141
“LOW TEMPLE ” -A poem by Arun Kolatkar
142
darkness.
The second image is the twenty feet high tortoise on which children
play .The significance of the image can be understood only if the
religious importance of the tortoise is understood as a symbol of
Lord Vishnu’s Kurma (tortoise) avatar and children are playing on
the stone image as though it is another plaything .The poet’s
attitude towards the religious experience is already evident from the
flippancy of his disputing the number of arms of the Mother
Goddess and the way the “sceptic match coughs” .Now when he
lights the Charminar cigarette with the same matchstick which had
dispelled the darkness of the temple earlier it is only natural that he
will see children playing on the stone tortoise which is worshipped
by people as Vishnu.A beautiful poem.
143
“A dog has died”– A stanza from Pablo Neruda’s poem
What I like about this stanza is the visual beauty of the lines with
some interesting images. The poet envies "the dog’s tail" (not the
dog).Imagine the frisky doggy tail against the sea’s waves and the
dog jumping about "full of the voltage of the sea’s movement".The
lines are more about the dog’s tail than the dog ,its "golden tail held
high" and "’face to face with the ocean’s spray". The other pretty
image is "the wintering birds filled the sky" ,the migratory birds
which have come to roost from far away places filling the sky.
The poet and the dog walked together in the shores of the sea. Note
that he did not walk the dog. The dog was a friend and a walking
companion .
144
W.H.Auden’s poem “Musee des arts “(The Fall of Icarus-A
painting by Broueghel)
(h t t p : / / s o u n d a r y a . f i l e s . w o r d p r e s s . c o m / 2 0 0 7 / 0 6 / i c a r u s b r e u g h e l . j
p g)
145
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
146
image for the poem. The vivid picture of the fall of Icarus portrayed
therein suggests a world untouched by the tragedy and the
under-current of irony in the poem brings out this aspect beautifully.
147
“may my heart be open to little birds” by e.e.cummings
–ee cummings
148
knowledge .If you do not hear them you have grown old..The
second ,not so important image is the poet’s mind strolling about
hungry and fearless -even if it is sunday may I be wrong meaning
the Sunday morals and religion should not blind you to the
interesting things of life .Whenever men are right they are not young
.Apparently it is the religious righteousness that takes away the
youthfulness of life distracting you from the various little
happinesses of life.
149
“Lady on a balcony” by Rilke
150
of the door ,which has so far remained closed, suddenly a dim view
of the room would present itself before you through the door which
slowly opens filling itself with a fragment of the room .As the door
fully opens the fragment slowly expands to become a much larger
view of the room as the door fully opens.
Lastly she appears with her hands resting on the railing like a
cameo appearing against the rows of houses below her balcony and
on all sides as though the rows of houses are passing on “her
hands “ resting on the balcony railing , in luminous outline, to the
heavens!
151
“Civil twilight” By Terri Witek
152
in this island .From here my eyes stretch to the distant horizon and
nests blunt the junctions at the estuary where the twilight wipes out
the distinctions between the sea and the river .As we have done
with our mutual heat .Horizons are stubbed out streets as they melt
into more vivid disclaimers, saying they do not belong to the island
and they do not own responsibility for the little island of
consciousness. In the end let go the gold ways you thought nothing
and think nothing for ever as you enter the night.
153
Moving sleep
(h t t p : / / s o u n d a r y a . f i l e s . w o r d p r e s s . c o m / 2 0 0 7 / 0 4 / m a n - s l e e p i n g - o n -
t h e - t r a i n s - r o o f . j p g)
154
“Love” – a poem by Hrishikesan B
“Love
One day
Her season of mangoes ended
And never returned”
155
In Mumbai city
In the early
Twenty first century
Thinking about
A Malayalam poem
In English.
My mother’s brocades
My mother’s moth-balled
Brocades , a whole lot of them,
Are lying systematically stacked up
In her ancient wooden cupboard
They smell of her ,the smell
That belonged to a slice of her life.
156
The rustle of the silk drowned
The wails of the boiling cocoons
These worms died that beauty would live
In their plaintive cries lay new bridal hopes .
157
“Ode to Autumn” by John Keats
Ode To Autumn
Poem lyrics of Ode To Autumn by John Keats.
158
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
159
image),”full-grown lambs loud bleat”(auditory-dynamic image
suggestive of the imminent slaughter of the sheep)”gathering
swallows “(readying for migration)
160
Minimalism in poetry
(h t t p : / / s o u n d a r y a . f i l e s . w o r d p r e s s . c o m / 2 0 0 7 / 0 3 / b i g - a g a i n s t - t h e - s
m a l l . j p g)
161
tried to create the moment without the usual ‘haze’ that a poet
usually creates :
162
In the dynamics of the moment is an interesting tabblo-that of the
sparrow love which represents a dynamic aspect of the beauty of
the moment ,suggesting the ephemerality of the sensory
experiences which make the moment.
163
“Let Evening Come”-by Jane Kenyon
The poem strikes you for the beauty of the visual imagery drawn
from a rural scene .Heart-rendingly beautiful ,especially when you
164
know that the poem actually talks about the creeping inevitability of
the tragic end of the poet’s friend who was slowly dying of cancer.
Herself a Bipolar disorder victim the poet has drawn from her own
experiences of her rural background to paint a beautiful picture of
the day as it progresses towards the evening and then darkness of
the night.
The light of the chinks in the barn moves slowly up the bales
towards the evening. The cricket prepares to chafe for the evening
and the woman readies to sew .Everything in nature is slowly
moving towards the evening and the night when the shed will
become “black”.The beauty of the imagery comes through in the
way the visual element gets built up -”light shining through the
chinks of the barn”, then “moving up the bales as the sun goes
down”, “dew collcting on the hoe abandoned in the tall grass”,”the
bottle in the ditch”,”scoop in the oats”- powerful word-pictures which
enhance the visual beauty of the poem.
165
“Entrance”- A poem by Rilke
I love this simple poem of Rilke ,being “whoever you are” trying to
step out of the living room.Like Rilke has told us I keep lifting a
single black tree and placing it against the sky .Sometimes I do this
with my camera which readily obliges :
166
(h t t p : / / s o u n d a r y a . f i l e s . w o r d p r e s s . c o m / 2 0 0 7 / 0 3 / t r e e - a n d - c l o u d . j p
g)
167
rice field without the mountains, the sky, the bush, the mud track,
the palm trees and the sunlight; there is no moon without the
customary coconut tree. Many times we are unable to appreciate
the beauty inherent in a natural scene because our senses cannot
focus enough on the essential nature of things , the luminescence
that emerges from the objects of nature acting on one another.
168
“Sailing to Byzantium” by W.B.Yeats
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
169
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
The poet uses powerful visual and auditory imagery to convey the
timelessness of art in a natural world which is subject to decay.
The birds image -Birds in the first stanza represent the dying
generations viz.the natural world .They are also the “fowl” “caught in
that sensuous music” of life.In the second stanza the image of the
“perne in a gyre” is taken from falconry -an extension of the bird
image.In the third stanza the bird becomes a golden bird set upon a
golden bough singing to keep the drowsy emperor awake .The
transformation is from the singing bird of the dying generations in
the first stanza to the artifice of the golden bird which is timeless art
against the dying bird of the natural world.
170
The music image- in the first stanza the music is of the natural world
which sings of “whatever is begotten,born and dies” and “fish,flesh
or fowl”are “caught” in that sensuous music .In the second stanza
“An aged man is but a paltry thing/A tattered coat upon a stick
unless/ Soul clap its hands and sing and louder sing “.Here music is
soul-uplifting ,immortalising human existence through art .In the
third stanza the music takes the form of the golden bird singing to
the Lords and Ladies of Byzantium /Of what is past ,or passing or to
come”
The old age or dying image- the most powerful metaphor used in
the second stanza is that of a scarecrow.(A tattered coat upon a
stick) .The comic absurdity of an old man’s existence is poignantly
brought out in the image. The redeeming quality of art raises the
human existence from its absudity to immortality. The scarecrow
image has another connotation -the scarecow scares away the
dying generations of the young world caught up in the sensuous
music of the natural world.There is another minor image of the
same connotation in the third stanza -that of the soul being
“fastened to a dying animal”
171
Visual imagery in Shakespeare’s plays
The most fascinating aspect of the above lines comes from the
“ethereal” quality of the lines as they are spoken by an essentially
aerial creature “Ariel”. Here is what the poet conveys about the
evanescence of human existence ,at the same time bringing out the
superiority of art over an organic existence. The noble Prince is
supposed to undergo a spiritual transformation from an essentially
flesh-and-blood existence into an infinitely beauteous natural
172
existence,pure and pristine like a pearl to be found in the depths of
the ocean.
173
“With These Rings” by Janet Paisley
174
We who are wordless know
thorns have roses.
I like two images -”Wear your wows well /when laughter is the wine
between you ” and “when night lies like a bolster down the middle of
your bed.” Beautiful .Especially “the night lies like a bolster” ,which
is visually very evocative.
175
“While she slept like Vishnu” by Neha Viswanathan
176
dirt with you. But rice is preferred.
But you must know this, last night,
I stole a little of you, while you were
sleeping like Vishnu.“
“White cotton snakes its form with the midnight wind” is a beautiful
image.It refers to her long drawn out saree against “somnambulist
blue” of the Ganga. “Cats near the ghat are dazed by the final
flames” refers to the funeral fires of the dead on the river steps of
the Ganga in Varanasi .The most beautiful image is the woman
“sleeping like Vishnu”.Vishnu is the primal God responsible for the
preservation of the Universe and he sleeps on the folds of the snake
in the ocean of milk from where He controls the world. On the river
ghat ,witnessing the cremation fires she sleeps like Vishnu,who
controls life preservation ! He of the Cauvery belt ,a rice-eater
comes here 2000 kms to this ancient city to experience its intense
beauty and its spirituality .
177
“8 Count”- A poem by Charles Bukowvski
from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I’d
let you
know,
fucker.
A very matter-of-fact style. The irony is what stands out. The only
important image-”my typewriter is tombstone” brings out the
178
frustrating creative block that the poet is experiencing.The birds
leaving the telephone wire one by one -a repetitive activity recalls
the classical story that never ends-one sparrow picks up the
grain,then another and so on and the story goes on till late into the
night. The writer’s block is humorously turned into a subject for a
poem : “just thought I would let you know,fucker”
179
“The Moment” by Margaret Athwood
Margaret Atwood
180
“the moment when the trees unlose their soft arms from around you”
is a nice image. The poet is talking about how we do not own nature
and the moment we claim ownership of a house or a territory we
lose touch with nature .Nature whispers that we do not own her
;rather she owns us. You were just a visitor,climbing the hill and
planting a flag proclaiming ownership but the hill never belonged to
you. “the air moves back from you like a wave” is another nice
image ,immediately followed by “you cannot breathe”.That is
because the trees have”unloosed their soft arms around you”
,depriving you of the precious oxygen which is essential for your life.
181
“The Waste Land.” by T.S.Eliot
182
feel free” is hauntingly beautiful.”I read much of the night and go
south in the winter”- the usage captivated us so much when we
were College students.The juxtaposition of two situations in different
time frames (I read ,much of the night-a shorter time frame
:juxtaposed with “go South in the winter”-a longer time frame) is a
clever use.
183
“The second coming” by W.B.Yeats
184
popular among scholars as well as ordinary folk.That Yeats is
talking about the Messiah coming out of the chaos in order to
straighten it out is fairly clear but the confusion is why the Second
Coming refers to the beast from the sandy desert and if it
represents evil why it is moving towards Bethlehem .The lines are
very epigrammatic: “The best lack all conviction; the worst are full of
passionate intensity”. It is as though Yeats has predicted the wave
of terrorism that has drowned the sanity of the present world. Yeats
had a deep interest in Hinduism which is what seems to account for
the belief that whenever there is chaos thee will emerge a Messiah
out of the disorder. The Gita says that whenever the world is
weighed down by the burden of mankind’s sins God will take a
human form and appear to set the world in order.
185
“The cord” by Leanne O’Sullivan
186
with delirium, with knowledge and fear.
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and when you feel removed from it
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“The Sight”by Mahim Bora
I was stunned
On the eyes, carrying the hunger of Durbasa
In delight
The ecstasy of the first wedding night
[ Translated by
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invitation to share dreams .”No eyes burnt this way/ In Kaziranga or
Dabaka”,which ,though ugly or annoyed ,held beauty enraptured.
The toad has come out of the cracks of the earth ,sitting on the
plinth (of an unfinished building ,I suppose) as the evening spread
on the grass of the plinth. The poet has pursued beauty all over the
place,in the markets and on the streets ;beauty has eluded him
everywhere till this rainy evening when the toad appears on the
plinth.
As nature poetry the poem excels in the way in which it captures the
sight of a toad on a rainy evening. The imagery has none of the
complexity such as you would find in modern poetry but has a
certain charming grace at once captivating and memorable. A part
of the charm is on account of the “exoticism ” found in such
translations from the Indian languages and can be better felt by an
Indian reader familiar with the nuances of the Indian languages.
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“To his coy mistress” by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
191
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on the skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run. “
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readings.:
The rest of the imagery does not match upto the beauty of this
single image. One gets the impression that the poet’s use of irony
does not leave enough scope for exploring images for their innate
beauty.
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One must feel how the birds fly
“For verses are not, as people imagine, simply feelings (those one
has early enough), -they are experiences. For the sake of a single
verse, one must see many cities, men and things, one must know
the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture
with which the little flowers open in the morning.” -Notebooks of
Malte Laurids Brigge
” For the sake of a single verse, one must see many cities,men and
things,one must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly
and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the
morning “
Just check how the poet has captured the crows flying in the
following lines:
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with crows
dawn on their feathers
screeching
copper on metal throats
cutting through clouds
awakening
awakening the grey sun
whilst I rise
rise
painted wrists flapping
catching air between fingers
dropping Memory
into an ornate lake
195
“Mirror” by Sylvia Plath
196
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Later,
Now I am a lake.
197
fish (old age rises above the reflection in the lake as an ugly fish
rises above the waters).
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“There’s a certain slant of light ” by Emily Dickinson
199
The poem by Emily Dickinson talks about the somber mood of a
winter afternoon which is oppressive and hangs like death. The
cathedral tunes are heavy enough and like them the winter evening
slant ,instead of flooding the place with orange light ,has filled it with
gloom. The despondency is beyond amelioration as though it has
come from the heavens and the seal seems irrevocably fixed.
While the poem is about death and is pretty gloomy, the imagery in
the last stanza is brilliant. ‘When it comes, the landscape listens and
shadows hold their breath “- is a pretty evocative image. The beauty
of the image is achieved through humanizing abstract entities like “a
certain slant of light”,” landscape”,” shadows”. The last line “it is like
the distance/On the look of death” is another highly visual image
referring to the blank stare of a dead person which appears focused
on a far away thing.
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Rilke’s letters to a young poet
In his 3rd letter to the young poet Rilke talks about literary criticism.
Read as little of criticism as possible, he advises the young man,
because such opinions are partisan or petrified opinions devoid of
life.
The words are beautiful and ring so true. Criticism reduces a work
of art to a lifeless entity capable of being dissected publicly for its
merits and demerits. The appreciation of art can only be done
through an exquisite sensibility born out of love and feeling, not
through ratiocination. Wordsworth has defined poetry as the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings .Our response to poetry
should therefore be guided by feelings and not by intellect.
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come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened.
Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression
and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself,
in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of
one’s own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to
wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it
means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating…”
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