Looking within and beyond
Maybe it’s time to think about what it means to be a poet writing in English in a country that hardly cares about poetry. Of course, poetry collections continue to appear, mostly with poets’ money, in print and online, but reaching the influential media and academia has been difficult. General support is missing.
Power and politics aside, practicing poets and editors such as DC Chambial, PCK Prem, TV Reddy, PK Joy, IK Sharma, RK Singh, Angelee Deodhar, Atma Ram, HS Bhatia, Pronab K Majumder, P Raja, Sudhir K Arora, Abnish Singh Chauhan, CL Khatri, Shaleen Kumar Singh, KV Dominic, CL Khatri, and many others have generously supported the powerful voices that deserve public and academic attention. Even when they demonstrate understanding of the relationship of poets to the present and the past, to the rich literary tradition, and to the sociopolitical system that denies their presence, the problem of literary mediation persists. His muse fights for a space in the world of literature.
Unless academic research on emerging and marginalized poets and writers in English at the local, regional and national levels is promoted as policy, native literary culture will not develop. It would not only be difficult, but also biased, exclusive, elitist and negative to discuss contemporary trends and consciousness in creative writing without speaking of hundreds of new voices that appeared after Ezekiel.
If a poet like VVB Ramarao stands out, he is an experienced academic, bilingual writer and translator, it is not only because of his ability to carry the message of Indian culture and heritage with dignity, but also because of his ability to communicate. . He sounds collaborative with contemporary life and society and writes with a purpose, which is both personal and social. Aware of generational change, he sees the outside world with a critical eye and tries to speak frankly. In the process, it turns inward to become religious, moral, and interpretive.
His manas, sensitive and mature as he is, creatively explores the conflict-ridden world – “kill, tear, rape, maim” with “strange codes for strange outrages” – and transforms into a life of love, kindness and compassion: “¿ Will vultures / become white doves, blue doves and black birds? “(‘The seer’s eye’), he suspects, but it sounds reassuring when he says:” Suffering does not have to be degraded “(” Examining a poet “) .
As he exposes what he observes on the outside: “Wholesale extinction threats are on the cards again,” with laloosaurs, tyrannosaurs, psittacosaurs, apatosaurs, jumping jacks, and so many other hydra heads defying humanity everywhere ( “Perhaps the center cannot be sustained, things are falling apart” -Pessimism), shows his inner strength: “But faith would never lose it.” It becomes positive and asks for order, to look inside, through the microscope of oneself, to see what it visualizes as “whiteness of mind” and “child’s face”.
Most of his poems are full of images and metaphors that reveal wisdom, knowledge, understanding and insight: “What’s outside is inside / Look for the face of the child you love: / Just look inside” (‘Look inside’) ; “Don’t ask what the world has come to – / Realize what you have come to” (Mall Malady Moron); and “Blessed is it to be alone / A devoutly desired consummation / That is all we need to know” (‘Bliss’).
The moralist and teacher in it is always alert: “It is not enough to have a watch on your wrist / You must know the value of time” (‘For our grandchildren’); “Spirituality needs wisdom and piety” (‘See through the UCI’); “The days of liberation recede further and further / Hydra heads cannot be beheaded at all” (‘Breasts of prey’); “Between ism and feminism the shadow falls / For her is the kingdom / Time does not heal: it only blunts. / Not everything is vanity: / Pain is real” (‘Blunt’); and “Only karmic suffering purges the scum” (‘Soul in transit’).
Ramarao’s didactic tone in many poems may or may not appeal to the new generation of readers, but everyone can feel the glow of his thinking. Savor and generously share what he calls a “delicacy” in poetry through holy wisdom: “Some stories from our scriptures, like epics, are guidelines for everyone.”
Like a seer-poet, he poignantly uses his metaphors to convey what may seem unpleasant but is true. He critically meditates on various social issues of the time and communicates his own personal vision, revealing the seasoned scholar that he has been and seeking his own salvation. His poetry defines the way he perceives the world around him and shows what is inside of it. There is a touch of faith in what he says. To that extent, his poetry is critical, with clarity of thought and diction, and with added humor, irony, satire, and moral tone that draw him to the paths of self with the same zeal with which he engages in bhakti or devotion. to me. Guess.
In fact, he flirts with the muse to experience the human and the divine as a seeker (cf. ‘Winter rain’ and ‘Foul play’). In his ‘Winter Flowers’ and other sex-laden poems, he seeks to emphasize that “loving sex” is a means of fulfillment. If one wants more and more of him, it is because, for many J. Krishnamurti, “there is the cessation of self-consciousness, of the ‘I’ … complete self-forgetfulness.” It is a condition for freedom from self, a spiritual state free from self, “seeking to be free from conflict because with the cessation of conflict, there is joy. If there can be freedom from conflict, there is happiness at all different levels of existence.” . “
When Ramarao’s narrator speaks of giving and receiving, longing for exuberant warmth, in the absolute unity of physical union, he seeks a greater continuity of pleasure and an escape from the deadly sense of emptiness, isolation, and loneliness. “Loneliness is hell,” he says. The poet seeks consolation in the advait philosophy of unity, but warns: “Libido is not everything; it can ignite another burning hell” (‘Examine a poet’). He continues:
“Hidden arsenals haunt an evil mind
Eager to add lustful continents to
The balloon popping at the seams.
There is no point in chanting mantras to make navigation benign. “
But love is its own eternity, just as discovering the ways of the self through poetry is Ramarao’s meditation. Volume is a discovery of the truth that everyone can enjoy. I am happy to be a part of it as a reader.