MEG 14 Block-6 Poetry
Unit-1 K. S. Nongkynrih : Requiem (Khasi)
Assamese poetry-
1st phase- early 20th century- romantic trend with patriotism and mysticism.
2nd phase- 1960s symbolism and esotericism
Khasi poetry- Kynpham sing Nongkynrih
Kynpham resides in Shillong in the capital of Meghalaya. Born on 4April 1964.
Works- 2 poetry book in English- Moments (1992) & The sieve (1992). And 3 books in khasi. Also translated 10 books for children in khasi.
Poem- Requiem
Poet takes us into the social world of a close community which has gathered together after the death of a woman - Meri.
Refrain- I heard them.
Someone who is stunned in silence by the moan of someone who is going to die.
They are asking what is wrong with Meri. It's ironic because what could be wrong or right with a dying person?
First part is meditative while the second is descriptive about the pre-cremation ceremonies.
Death disturbs the living more than the dead.
The term ‘requiem’ means a song, sung at the funeral ceremony of a dead person.
Kokborok poetry- Chandra kanta Murasingh
Murasingh lives in Agartala, Tripura. Born 1 April 1957. Writes in Kokborok and Bengali.
Awards- bhasha sanman award from sahitya akademi.
Works- 5 collections of poems.
Poem- The stone speaks in the forest.
Read here - https://www.monash.edu/arts/monash-indigenous-studies/literary-commons/literary-commons-stories/the-stone-speaks-in-the-forest
By Chandrakanta Murasingh
Writing Sample : a poem translated into English
The pretty golden deer grew restless
And suddenly came running
Into this amlaki grove
Looking for a mate.
The stone did not speak,
The deer will leave now.
One day the King arrived, lights played
He stood, with his foot
Pressing the forehead of the stone
And looking to find which way
His prey was on the run
The weight of feet tormenting the hill
The stone was silent because
The pain was not his alone.
A man with a broken heart came today
Accompanied by his lady love
Sprayed dreams and tears on the stone
And went away rowing upstream.
They will build their home in the deep forest.
Water runs, the laidom leaves quiver
Hachukrai drags his bamboo raft
There is a market downstream, on a sandy islet,
Wondering, who will respond now
The stone speaks in the forest
With bow and arrow in hand
Rfb
Manipuri poetry - Yumlembam Ibomcha singh
From Imphal Manipur. Born on 21 August 1949. 2 collection of poetry. Published 90 short stories. Manipur state kala academy award in 1974 and sahitya akademi award in 1991.
Ibomcha's early poetry was rebellious. Protest to social and political oppression. Part of a literary movement group of poets called young angry poets.
Later as an escape route his poetry moved to dream-like sequences.
Poem- the last dream
Theme of death. Unreal death, a fantasy or ritual death against life. RFB
Unit-2 Haribhajan Singh : Tree and the Sage
Modern Punjabi Poetry starts from 1850.
Progressive movement from 1936 as India was fighting against colonials. It declined during the 60s.
Post independence panjabi poetry inherited progressive ideology from the pre independence development and the partition sharpened this outlook with a sense of loss and tragedy.
During the 60's experimental movement raised its voice against romantic progressive and traditional poetry.
Neo progressive poetry or naxalite poetry was against traditional progressive and experimental modernist poetry.
Panjabi poetry abroad
Harbhajan Singh 1920-2002
Born in Lamding Assam on 18august. Stayed in Lahore and Delhi. Worked in college. Awards- punjab state award-1933, sahitya akademi award-1969, sahitya kala parishad award in 1978 etc. List RFB
First poetry Book- Laasan in 1956. In 1957 a poetic play- Taar-tupka. In 1962 Adhraini a collection of lyrics. 1967- na dhupe ba chhaven
Rukh te rishi tree and the sage.
Long narrative but complex poem. Abstract autobiographical details are there. The poem has 6 cantos, 1 adika and antika. Explanation in book RFB
Outline of modern hindi poetry
The Bhartendu period from 1868-1900 began with the same poet based on the new nationalist thinking because of British imperialism.
Dwivedi period from 1900 on the poet. He felt the Bhartendu poets were not focusing on the correct Hindi and writings were mostly in khari boli or braj bhasha . Mahaveer prasad Dwivedi was an idealist and didn't publish any romantic poems.
Chhayavaad or influence of romanticism was from 1918-1938.
Progressive poetry from 1936 under the influence of socialist realism, Russian revolution or marxism. Munshi Premchand was the main voice.
Anti Poetry or experimentalist movement or akavita from 1960.
Raghuvir Sahay
Born on 9dec 1929. First poem published in 1947. Collection of poetry sirion par dhoop main in 1960, 1972 short stories collection 1979 translated Shakespeare's Macbeth. Sahitya akademi award in 1984 for his book log bhool gaye hain.
Total 5 volumes of published poetry
The stare
It was written in 1972. In the very first line common facts about death are visible. The centre signifier gives death multiple meanings. Signifier makes an image but this image is always moving, never staying at one meaning that's why it becomes a floating signifier. It is always more poetic.
Unit-3 Dina Nath Nadim : The Moon
Dina nath nadim - the moon translation by j.l. kaul.
Dina nath was born on 18 march 1916 in Srinagar. Poverty and weak health affected Nadim all his life.
Kalhana award in 1985 and sahitya akademi award in 1986. Sharda samman in 1993 posthumously. Died on 7april 1988 suffered from partial paralysis.
Upto 1930 poetry only existed in oral tradition in Kashmir.
Nadim has been compared to a deodar tree which is associated with elegance and strength. As he took major social and political issues using strong propagandist language.
The moon(zoon)
Read here - https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/sonnet-5
Sonnet
Such are days I can believe the moon to be
Unleavened bread, but for scars I see unseam
A neck so collared in every dissolute color; I’ll believe,
Instead, the moon is cut from threadbare Pampur tweed.
The moon is bread, if through a spent halo in decline
She yet shines, something too finely used or unseemly old,
Something a man may slip in with money owed
The peasant girls—this moon is counterfeit coin.
The moon is unleavened bread and the mountains
Hunger. The Clouds again put out kitchen fires.
But in woods I’ll see by glimmer light and glean faeries
By the glow of their cooking stoves and on distant peaks I’m sure
There’s a little rice that’s trying to grow. I’ll let my hunger know,
I’ll heave my eyes to the heavens.
Nadim used an Italian model of petrarchan sonnet. Moon is compared to a pancake or chapati because that's how it would appear to a hungry person rather than a lover.
Padma Sachdev born in 1940 in jammu in a family of Sanskrit scholars.
1971 sahitya akademi award also j&k culture academy award twice.
Padma Sachdev- the moment of courage translation by iqbal masood
Read here- https://pyotra.tumblr.com/post/141531400396/to-the-right-of-our-hill-there-is-a-well
The moment of courage
"To the right
Of our hill
There is a well
Shining, brimful.
Last year
Summer covered it with
The green of mango blossoms.
It tempted a calf
Which fell in and drown
Since then
No one drinks
Of that well.
At night
Like a thief
I bathe in it.
I cup my hands
and drink.
But love is not quenched
Nor thirst.
In the deep dark
Of the well
There are wistful shadows
Waiting
For the maidens who hung
A rope on its nail
But never came back
To draw water.
The dark of the well
Longs for that moment of courage
When in full sight of all
My hands
Will stretch out
For a drink." -
A sensitive poem about the close relationship between human and nature, lements of nature and superstition and caste consideration that keep people away from the well after the drowning of the calf. But the poet drinks water from the well and takes showers from that water only at night. As she is waiting for that moment of courage to be able to do it in broad daylight.
Unit 4 -Kondepudi Nirmala : Mother Serious
Telegu poetry was best for feminine perspective. Women began to assert and establish their rights to a free, frank and fearless expression. No innuendo or euphemism. Irony and satire were used extensively.
Kondepudi nirmala- mother serious translation by k. Damodar rao. In telegu
K. Nirmala was born on March 26, 1958. List of writing and awards on pg4 RFB.
Mother serious was published poetry column in a weekly magazine on 1-12-1989.
Serious denotes someone who is in a critical condition. Everyone is waiting for her death and even the mother has given up on living.
Abbee- dear son.
Vimla- kitchen translation by k. Damodar Rao. In telegu
Vimla was born in 1963 in a middle class family in Hyderabad. Lived in a liberal environment father was an active telengana struggle member.
Read here - https://englishlanguage-lit.blogspot.com/2019/12/kitchen-vimala-summary.html
Kitchen-
Kitchen: Vimala
I remember the kitchen’s ,
Flavor upon flavor,
A mouthwatering treasury,
Pungence of seasonings,
And the aroma of incense
From the prayer room
Next door. Each morning the kitchen awoke
To the swish of churning butter
The scraping of scoured pots.
And in the center, the stove,
Fresh washed with mud, painted
And bedecked, all set to burn.
We saved secret money in the
seasoning box, hid sweets too,
and played at cooking with lentils and
We played Mother and Father,
In the magic world of kitchen
That wrapped childhood in its spell.
No longer playground for the grown up girl
Now trained into kitchenhood.
Like all the mothers and mothers’ mothers
Before her, in the kitchen
She becomes woman right here.
Our kitchen is a mortuary,
Pans, tins, gunny bags
Crowd it like cadavers
That hang amid clouds of damp wood smoke.
Mother floats, a ghost here,
A floating kitchen herself, her eyes melted in tears,
Her hands worn to spoons,
Her arms spatulas that turn
Into long frying pans, and
Other kitchen tools.
Sometimes Mother glows
Like a blazing furnace,
And burns through the kitchen ,
Pacing, restless, a caged tiger,
Banging pots and pans,
How easy, they say,
The flick of a ladle and the cooking ‘s done
No one visits now.
No one comes to the kitchen except to eat.
My mother was queen of the kitchen,
But the name engraved on the pots and pans is Father’s
Luck, they say, landed me in my great kitchen,
Gas stove, grinder, sink, and tiles.
I make cakes and puddings,
Not old-fashioned snacks as my mother did.
But the name engraved on the pots and pans is my husband’s
My kitchen wakes
To the whistle of the pressure cooker,
The whirr of the electric grinder.
I am a well-appointed kitchen myself,
Turning round like a mechanical doll.
My Kitchen is a workshop, a clattering,
Busy, butcher stall, where I cook
And serve, and clean and cook again.
In dreams, my kitchen haunts me,
My artistic kitchen dreams,
The smell of seasonings even in the jasmine.
Damn all kitchens, May they burn to cinders,
Our lives, eat out days- like some enormous vulture
Let us destroy those kitches
That turned us into serving spoons.
Let us remove the names engraved on the pots and pans.
Come, let us tear out these private stoves,
Before our daughters must step
Solitary into these kitchens.
For our children’s sakes,
Let us destroy three lonely kitchens.
The poem ridicules the system where a woman is reduced to a moron and a machine in the kitchen.
K. Ayyappa panikar - I met Walt Whitman yesterday-an interview. Translation by a.j. thomas in Malayalam
K. Ayyappa 12 sept 1930 in Kerala to 2006. Did his PhD in US.
India's background to walt Whitman - writer, humanitarian who believed in innate dignity of man and disregarded social convention and public morality. Loved Hindu spirituality.
I met walt Whitman yesterday-
Has a special kind of structure that of an imaginary interview in the reverse mode with the subject asking all the questions.
Poem is a dialogue poem between poet Whitman who died in 19th century in US. Poem is in 2 parts. Pg 17 to 20 explanation of the poem.
Unit-5 Ramakanta Rath : Sri Radha
Ramakant rath - sri radha translation by the poet oriya poetry.
Orissa- old name utkal or kalinga. Oria poetry is almost 500years old. 15 to 19 century is ancient or medieval period followed by modern period. These are further subdivided.
1st period of religious poetry with themes of Mahabharata and ramayan.
2nd phase from 16 to 19 centre saw the emergence of descriptive poetry subdivided in 3-
Secular writing
Classic epics and Kavya
Bhagabata includes lyrics and other shorter forms.
Modernism in oriya poetry
1930 to 1970 as indian part of anglo American modernism. Followed by post rautray phase of modernism in oriya poetry.
Ramakant Rath born in 13dec 1934 at Cuttack was given to foster parents in a village district of Puri.
President of sahitya akademi after his retirement.
Sri radha is a long poem comprising 61 sections arranged in a particular sequence to convey a congeries of emotions felt by the protagonist, a lovelorn woman, Radha, for her lover. However Rath denies that his radha has anything to do with the mythical one. He didn't plan it to be a long poem but while writing he realised that he can connect some of his prewritten work and so the end result was sri Radha.
Intertextuality.
In vaishnavism it is common that for all devotional community there is only 1 male god, since all devotees are female in relation to him. God as purusha and nature as prakriti the woman. So male dressed as female call themselves brides of krishna and reincarnation of Radha.
13to16 page description of the stanzas 1to7.
Shakti chattopadhyay- just once try translation by sibnarayan ray in Bengali.
The hungry poet generation was short-lived yet significant in the sixties. They were influenced by angry young man movement.
Fake famine, partition between east and West Pakistan, naxalite movement affected Bengal.
Shakti chattopadhyay 25nov 1933 in Bengal to 23 march1995 died of heart attack. Lost his father in 1940 which might be the reason of re-appearance of images of death. Grandfather died in Hindu Muslim riot when he was 15. He joined communist party was a member till 1955. Barely completed his education as he didn't like to attend rigid classes. Didn't like the idea of fixed circumscribed job either. Travel and alcohol were his addiction.
Sahitya akademi award in 1983.
Just once try combines the experience of love and lovessness, nature and civilization, spontaneity and artifice to the extent that they cease to exist as binaries but flow into each other. The poem can be read as an address to a woman 'you' who is urged to try to love or as a self directed soliloquy voicing of an interior need to acquire the ability to love.
The poem is written in free verse.
Read here - http://sunflowercollective.blogspot.com/2015/11/poems-shakti-chattopadhyay-translated.html
Try just once to love
You'll see rocks tumbling from the breast of the fish in the river
Rocks rocks rocks and the river and ocean water
Blue rocks turning red, red rocks, blue
Try just once to love
It's good to have a few rocks in your heart - they echo sounds
When every walking trail is treacherous, I can arrange the rocks one after another
And go all the way to the distant door of autumn's pale stars for a look
At the naked use of poetry, of waves, of Kumortuli's idols in gaudy, sequined, embroidered costumes.
It's good to have a few rocks in your heart
There's no such thing as a letterbox - leaving it in the cracks in the rocks is good enough
The heart does want to build a home sometimes.
The rocks in the breast of the fish are slowly occupying our hearts
We need it all. We shall build houses - erect a permanent pillar to civilisation.
The silver fish left, shedding rocks
Try just once to love.
Unit-6 Sitanshu Yashashchandra : Orpheus
11-12 century AD history of Gujarati poetry.
1450 to 1850 medieval or bhakti period. 2 famous poets Narsimha Mehta- vaishnav jan ko ...... and Mirabai.
Before 1960 idealism and romanticism was widespread. Hence the main concern was reform and society.
Contemporary period came after 1960.
Sitanshu yashashchandra- Orpheus translation by the poet. In gujarati
He was born in bhuj gujarat on 19 August 1941. Completed education in different states. Studied science in bombay but didn't like it. So he completed literature and went to US as a scholar.
1st collection of poem published in 1975 - Odysseusnum Halesun.
In 1986 jatayu won sahitya akademi award.
Orpheus was a charming young man from greek epic poetry. Full story on pg-6.
Story if garuda on pg7.
Orpheus by sitanshu is apparently a lyricsong, which upon closer look turns out to be both anti lyrical and anti song bcz the original story has been replaced in the poem with their opposites.
Pg7-8 explanation of the poem.
Namdeo dhasal- A notebook of poems and autobiography translation by sathosh bhoomkar in marathi dalit poetry
Marathi is the southern most indo Aryan language. Meeting point of North and South by virtue of geographical location.
1278 is the oldest marathi literature found.
Second current was pandit kavya or traditional learned poets
Third current belonged to shahir poets for lavani and powada.
Modern Marathi period - First phase
Keshavsut 1866-1905 the father of modern Marathi poetry.
Ravikiran mandal or circle of sun beam group started a new era of poetry. Talking about the emotions of a common man, invented new patterns of prosody and content including everyday subjects in the poems.
Patriotic and nationalist stream. Eg Savarkar.
Modern Marathi period second phase-
After 1945 B.S mardhekar revolutionized marathi poetry. His content was declared obscene and pervert almost criminal.
Muktibodh trend included the marxist views.
Scene after 1960 - ultra modern and post modern.
Dalit poetry- poetry of rebellion or Ambedkari kavita
Sanskrit adjective Pada- dalit meaning crushed under feet. pg 13-14
Namdeo Dhasal- born on 15feb 1949 in a small district of Pune. Co founder militant activist movement dalit panthers. Over 300 cases were filed against him and his panthers. Associated with Thackeray and shiv sena. Awarded padmashree in 1999. Pg15 list of his books and plays.
First published collection Golpitha in 1972.
A notebook of poems - appears in the collection ya sattet jeev ramat nahi . The original title in marathi is Kavitechi vahi. The original marathi poem has 3 stanzas whereas the English translation has printed in 2.
The poet has reached his destination but someone is not opening the door. You is representing the system.
Second Stanza has the intertextuality of Kabir's doha.
Autobiography the last poem in the same collection ye sattet.... Is atmacharitra. It begins with the assurance that the image in the mirror of water is the poet's own image. Pg 17 -19.
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