Poetry Reviews
Name: jagannath rao adukuri
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You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
A Dream Within a Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe
The lines are truly memorable.Our days have been a dream but that does not mean that they have never existed.All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. A dream within the grand dream.
"O Kamatipura,
Tucking all seasons under your armpit
You squat in the mud here
I go beyond all the pleasures and pains of whoring and wait
For your lotus to bloom.
— A lotus in the mud."
Kamatipura by Namdeo Dhasal:translated from Marathi by Dilip Chitre
The poem is about Mumbai's seedy whoreland popularly called Kamatipura.I like these lines for the "directness" of the imagery employed, the almost "crude" kind of metaphors used here -tucking all seasons under your armpit ,you squat in the mud here, etc.That is precisely the kind of metaphors which are called for to deal with the despair and absurdity of the human situation here -where these pedlars of romance live in abject misery and hopelessness from which there is no redemption .
T. S. Eliot: Preludes
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimneypots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
Apart from the "atmosphere" created here,what I have liked about this poem is the exquisite imagery used to create the atmosphere. especially ,the image of "the burnt out ends of smoky days" .The day is unending and one long uneventful dreary passage of smoke-filled time .There is nothing much to do all the time.Nothing really happens,nothing ever happens. The cigarette butts are slowly burning out leaving the ashes smoldering in the ash-tray .The day ,like the cigarette,burns out leaving only the smoky end. Another day,another empty passage of time-a prelude to nothing .
"In some summers there is so much fruit,
the peasants decide not to reap any more.
Not having reaped you, oh my days,
my nights, have I let the slow flames
of your lovely produce fall into ashes?"
Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by A.Poulin
"Growing old" is one of the lesser known of Rilke's poems .The interesting imagery used here is the concrete image of the fruit-bearing tree for the abstract "day and nights" of the poet which have already been spent. A straight image -the image of the tree- which reinforces what the poet is talking about -the old age.The tree image goes on uninterruptedly till the last word is said about the theme of old age. There is just some hope of "equal sweetness" stroking the leaves but that is only in passing. There is just a possibility of the branches blooming for the last time without their bearing fruit.
There is just one image which is striking - letting the slow flames of your lovely produce fall into ashes. The image is pretty but within the main image of the tree it seems to clutter the unified thought of the poem.But Rilke's mind is so much crowded with beautiful analogies that he cannot help saying everything at the same time. In itself the image is exquisitely vivid-the slow flame of the poet's days and nights falling into ashes.
Texaco
by Tony Hoagland
The nozzle of the gas pump
plunged into the flank of the car
like the curved beak of a predatory bird
looks like it is drinking
or maybe I'm light-headed
from the fumes
or from the slanted light
of Thursday afternoon.
—Still, it is a powerful moment
when I squeeze the trigger of the handle
and feel, beneath the stained cement,
the deep shudder and convulsion
of the gasoline begin
its plunging rush in my direction.
Out of the guts of the earth,
filtered through sand and blood
down the long hose of history
towards the very nipple of this moment:"
http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/hoagland_su06.html
A lovely image-"the nozzle of the gas pump plunging into the flank of the car like the curved beak of a predatory bird" The image is highly graphic up to this point ,merely describing the filling of the car on a Thursday afternoon but leads up to the next moment which extends to the universal elements which will come later in the poem. The choice of diction at this stage is indicative of where the poem will eventually lead the reader-the nozzle plunges like the curved beak of a predatory bird.Mark the adjective "predatory" which foreshadows "the sand and blood"-the tales of mankind of war and destruction,of exploitation and man's humanity to man.The tales of gasoline "rushing in my direction/ out of the guts of the earth" are sordid tales of destructive wars and wanton exploitation of the natural resources ,which have reached us "down the long hose of history" to the "nipple" of the moment.
A marvelous piece of poetry.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
trans.Edward Fitzgerald
In our college days we used to look upon the Rubaiyat as a mere book of verse with fine illustrations ,especially containing figures of beautiful nubile girls intertwined with the branches of the tree .The poetry appeared exotic at the most but without much appeal to a young reader.Now, at this age the girls no longer interest me but the poetry now does.
The Rubaiyat is beautiful verse with outstanding imagery.Some of the finest imagery is to be found in these verses ,known for their haunting lyrical quality as well.
"....The hunter of the east has caught
The Sultan's turret in a noose of light "
A fascinating image referring to the hunting practice of throwing a knotted rope around an animal to catch it while fleeing. A highly visual imagery.
"...in the fire of spring
the winter garment of repentance fling"
Another amazing image-mark the words fire ,spring ,winter garment,fling -as the winter goes the spring arrives and into its fire the winter garment of repentance is thrown and burnt to ashes.
This very famous verse
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
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.
From the Book of Hours
The last house of this village stands
as alone as if it were the last house in the world.
The road, that the little village cannot hold,
moves on slowly out into the night.
The little village is but a place of transition,
expectant and afraid, between two vast distances,
a passageway along houses instead of a bridge.
And those who leave the village may wander
a long time, and many may die perhaps
along the way.
Rainer Maria Rilke
from The Book of Hours
(tr. Cliff Crego)
One of the most "visual" of Rilke's poems.The imagery is almost photographic. Just imagine a village,a path that goes through a village ,a road that the village cannot "hold" but only eject it into the night,the last house standing on the edge of the village as if it were the last house in the world. The little village continues to function as the transition point between two vast distances ,just like any other 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.
Sonnet on blindness
by John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, thought my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Make, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide:
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own grist, who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve, who only stand and wait."
"They also serve who only stand and wait"-because unlike the thousands of others who ,"at his bidding ,speed and post o'er land and ocean/without rest" he can only wait patiently for God's grace.The interesting thing is the use of minimal visual imagery by the poet who had lost his vision before half his life was spent. "in this dark world and wide" is an interesting use of the epithet -"dark"qualifying the "world " suggesting a blind man's world -a world perceived by the blind man-does not indicate an actual attribute of the noun 'world'. The other adjective "wide" coming after the noun suggests an actual attribute of the noun "world" and is independent of the blind man's perception.
"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:
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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.
"Not more than half
a mile in front of him the wretched little
district town in which his brother
had just been
tried lay outstretched on the
hill. On the right
was the dark prison with its
red roof and
sentry-boxes at the corners; on the
left was the big
town copse, now covered with hoar-frost."
http://www.shortstoryarchive.com/c/darkness.html
Does this sound like poetry ? Actually it has been taken from the short story "Darkness" by Anton Checkov. Almost poetry.
On the left was the big town corpse now covered with hoar-frost
This powerful story by Checkov moves one deeply-being about the supplication of a poor peasant to a doctor for the release of his brother who has been sentenced to undergo 3 years' confinement in a convict battalion for a minor offence. The darkness pervades everywhere in the prison,in the drunken break-in which has landed the poor peasant in jail,in the hearts of men who form the beureaucratic system where a poor man does not get justice.
The lines are pure poetry.
nisheedhi on The day wavers
howard on The day wavers
nisheedhi on The day wavers
BrendanJobin on The day wavers
8count
adil jussawala
arun kolhatkar
charles bukowvski
checkov
eapoe
faustus
forgetting has a shape
growing old rilke
hamlet
marlowe
milton
namdeo dhasalkamatipura
old woman
preludestseliot
radio with guts
rilke
robert frost
rubaiyat of omar khayyam
sea-change
sea of troubles
shakespeares sonnet73
sonnet on blindness
tempestshakespeare
the road not taken
you and only you exist