Friday, May 8, 2015
Sunday, December 14, 2014
First rays of dawn
Sunil Sharma in his third poetry collection, ‘Mundane My Muse’, places his readers face to face with the truth of life. Given that so much, his poems feel solidarity with those who have suffered as well as a quiet celebration of the peacetime and the nature that is so easily lost, so quickly taken for granted, so undervalued.
In his Foreword, Rob Harle has rightly pointed out ‘In many of Sunil’s poems there is the dichotomy of the haves and the have not’s” and the elegance and beauty of nature contrasted with the crass, ugliness of high-rise concrete jungles. In this substantial collection of poems, eighty in all, we are treated to a delightful smorgasbord of literary gems.’
Sunil Sharma in his preface has said, ‘Poetry is like the first rains over a smoggy town: It washes away all the grime and revives the dormant seedling sand revitalizes the corroded cores of your inner- life.’ He is a clear eyed poet, never shy of telling the truth and his writings are trustworthy as testimony.
The title of the book ‘Mundane My Muse’ is a gentle understatement of the poet’s creative soul. Remarkably enough, the book seems both local and global. The poet here finds symbols in,
This sleepy afternoon,
In a small fishing village,
Off the beach in SW, Australia,
A breeze slips in,
Blowing a faded rose. (Beach poem)
There is a very thin but discernible kind streak in his poems which is not the same as having a soft heart. Sometimes it has become a recipe for trouble but his observing eye is so restlessly hungry for detail that it can’t confine itself to a single point of view. ‘Finally, poetry is coming face to face with your spiritual truths that refuse to be commodified and reified by a mass culture. It fulfils you and makes you whole,’ the poet remarked once.
Like a few of his poems here, they are so short that your heart asks for more,
Blank
Eyes
Of the
Widowed mother,
Totally
Blank -
Like a
Lonely
Broken
Country road,
On a summer
Night. (Blank)
We are all familiar, if only for a short period, with the unreal seeming world. The tenuousness of the subject is beautifully underlined.
Detritus is scattered around; in fact, the lamp is part of its dreamy calm will give way to a strange image.
The flickering lamp,
A personal statement
Of a believer’s faith,
Emitting a strange luminosity
That beats the electric light! (Flickering Lamp)
And the ultimate luxury is not just enough but a little more timeless emblems of civilization. Some of his poems are brutally elegant. The images refracted through his words are commendably incisive.
Much of the struggles are rooted in its devotion to life; its settings, its long shadows and mirrors and hermetically sealed world. Not that it happens in a bubble, but sometimes lusciously dark yet the poet goes deeper sketching each one’s real self. The poet touches upon a few pressure points which instantly determines the poem’s trajectory with ease and finesse. More impressive is the expertly weighted interplay between words and rhythm.
His words pop into prickly sharp focus and fresh colour and the images go past the reader one after another in a fluid motion- no clichés no exaggeration, each utterly distinct in his own identity, each the potential hero, like the slum boy. The venerable poet has always come out with flying colors when grappling with the reality check.
Four women
Varied age groups
Walking down the
Solitary
Country lane from
The far-off river,
This
Early morning,
Balancing heavy
Five-six
Pots piled up
On each other,
A daily act of gifted
Acrobats. (Acrobats)
An uproariously interesting, the narrative in some of his poems is self-reflective and the poet embodies the salient part. There is nothing negative or cynical, no sense that it will be betrayed by the surroundings. His poems are not of an unusual kind, simply and movingly encapsulates the concept.
In defense of human pursuits and values, thereby not neutralized, he has never gone over the edge. Poetry is always in his bones. It occurs to me that there are numerous times, the poet notes the ambiguity in life and pays close attention to the word usage for illustration. He is capable of touching as well as loving.
In silky shadows that quiver constantly
With every breath of wind,
Thus—
Creating, on this golden afternoon,
A rich world of chiaroscuro.
And then this words heighten the emotion and although a little fretful at the start, the poem effects a magical turn at the end.
Reminded of the famous
Japanese scroll paintings
That turn the bare home walls
Into vibrant
Vivid works of
Immaculate
Art. (A February Afternoon)
The poem begins with silky shadows but creates a rich world of chiaroscuro. The bare home walls testify to an effective style where certainty is more than is claimed.
Works of nature often sparked his imagination,
The Champa in big clusters,
Blooming on the bald tree;
Nature has covered amply
The tree’s shocking bareness; (Adornment)
Or
The graceful bamboos
Awash in the golden hue,
On this bright morning,
Swaying like amazons,
Along the serpentine
Country lane; (Autumn)
This poetry collection is elevated by the same fluent and freewheeling style that’s made Sunil Sharma, an accomplished poet. He has aptly said ‘Poetry is a surviving link with our heroic past, with our mythological memory, with a unique moment when man and god were not yet cruelly split but were real for the other and having a continual dialogue. Like these two plants, it is endangered and becoming exotic’. The words and rhythm of his poems not only delight the ear but refills the mind and body.
After reading the book, we find a voice at the end that echoes with a surge of inner life within our soul. It illustrates the way we pick up threads and move on in a quiet alleyway scaling heights on the way.
This beautifully designed book is definitely a must buy for the avid poetry lovers and I recommend this book strongly enough.
The publisher Authorspress, New Delhi, deserves to be complimented for this noble effort.
………………………………………………………………………………
Mundane, My Muse by Sunil Sharma
Authorspress
E-35/103, Jawahar Park
Laxmi Nagar, Delhi-110 092
Website: www.authorspressbooks.com
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Fetch the Sky
Poem Continuous-Reincarnated Expressions, offers English translations of the selected Bengali poems written by the gifted Poet Bibhas Roy Chowdhury. The poetry collection is ably translated in English by Kiriti Sengupta.
In his Foreword, Don Martin has rightly pointed out that ‘Poem Continuous’ is a wonderful introduction to the lush world of Bengali Poetry’. He also mentioned that ‘ Bengali is a beautiful language which gives free reign to a poet, and he can paint his word pictures at will with astounding ferocity and intensity’ but he warned ‘ One particular problem is that meanings in Bengali are conveyed as much through structure and grammar as they are through vocabulary’.
We know about the age-old apprehension, ‘you can’t translate properly a good poem.’ For Kiriti, the turning point in translation comes to read between the lines and he never loses focus. He comes even more determined to find his way to the lucid, distinct form of the contents that reach for the sustained, not momentary.
He understands, ‘Getting into the soul of a poem is undoubtedly the most challenging task for the translator’. Admittedly, Kiriti has realized that from the core of his heart and takes it seriously too. For example, the following lines pack an immense punch,
Look, your kisses fly away to reach the cloud,
And your hug enabled a child to identify a bird (The Debt).
It is the aim of the translator to reconfigure the poems in a way that will convey the spirit of the original without any trappings of the weight and the scale. Kiriti in his note remarked, ‘Roy Chowdhury’s poems are exceptionally easy to read; they sound easy when read but they are extremely difficult to translate into English’. I have read a few of the Bibhas’s poems in Bengali and I cannot but agree with Kiriti.
For Bibhas, it’s a fine line between resonant and insipid and the poet crosses it most of the times with skill and purpose, pointing back to the daily battle with self. In this sense, he reminds us, to confront both its past and ones’ own. And for some people, the leave is freedom. The identity and its complications stem as much for one’s surroundings as from within.
My mother stays far away, all alone
Like the coveted hibiscus flower
Hidden beneath the wild grass (The Poetry of a Hibiscus Flower).
Not too often he uses the weight of the history but underpins that some pivotal things happen in Bengal and what happens has echoes across the time plane and generations. His poems demonstrate the effects of life, they signal the intrusive, intimate viscidness of the struggle. In the core of my heart I nurse the wounded soul
Carefully
Union of the parted Bengal will aid in my recovery (Bhatiali- Song of the Boatmen)
One cannot but agree with Alokeranjan Dasgupta’s keen observations on Bibhas Roy Chowdhury’s works, ‘His poems depict much struggle and crisis, yet these are dream-inducing as we commonly expect from poetry. Bibhas’ poems take us to trance’.
The poet answers himself,
What is poetry?
The blind bird
Was painting
Is nest so deceptive?
On the water body…(The Horizon)
His poems are like flickering sunbeams; teem with enough thoughts on life. Yet in a few instances, he tends to search for a space that possesses the substance and the authority that have let fall away. These intertwined desires to reveal, to listen and to explore are tested in his poems.
No misery
I can easily remember
On our lips
You brought unhesitant
Some crazy sky (Yes)
Given that so much, his poem seems bitter and clunky at times but he ends up with a more powerful, even haunting amalgam of the theme and content. Comfort is not one of the zones you need to be in and for that matter pain is useful.
How can I depart?
His words fail to cease
Better I keep some wound
Beside the coming tune… (The People)
The beauty of the lyricism lingers in ‘Our lovers are only the weather bulletins!’ no matter what you do with it. His poems are not of an unusual kind, simply and movingly encapsulates the concept and Kiriti’s translation is flawless.
I know tears make your love behind blind
you are to speak out, anyway.
Lift your face for once…
I’m not here, my absence…this is the other sky…(Eternal)
Though at great ease with his multitude of voices, the poet often demonstrates the struggle in a suggestive trance,
We, two old mirrors,
Bite each other to die… (Speaking with the Self)
What you are looking at really, more than anything else, is a core identity and the poet has to find a path of his own. Bibhas trusts himself and his poems have a withholding pattern, doling out words in bits and bytes, relying on the readers to construct the whole.
Fetch the sky
Now that the river dries
Suits only me. (The Small Boat)
What apparent for this book, however, is the single-minded efforts of both the poet and the translator that lead to a seamless journey to achieve the goal. In a way, Poetry is meant to be read and heard. We feel a powerful sense of connection at the end. For this, Poem Continuous will surely find a wide reader.
The cover design by Partha Pratim Das is appropriate. This book is a must for your shelf to fill up the empty moments.
………………………………………………………………………………
Poem Continuous by Bibhas Roy Chowdhury
Translated by Kiriti Sengupta
Published by
Inner Child Press Ltd, U.S.A
Price- INR 130
In and Out
The moon comes in and out of focus
For now though, he is happy
The darkness suffers concussions.
A rehearsal before the mirror
Of multiple faces, of fingernails,
They ends with punches.
He cries, he cries in silence
An antidote to the sterility,
A page is re- written.
Hope; it comes and goes
Lurching from anger to pain
And things about to get worse.
There will be fire inside simmering
For now the Universe is at peace.
His eyes are frozen in tears.
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