Poetry –expressions that carry voices beyond borders of nations and histories

By Dilshan BOANGE

A discussion with reference to the poem “Cry Freedom” by Singaporean poet Edwin Thumboo.

Poetry reigns and prospers in a world of its own. Unlike the genre of fiction or drama the licences that poetry is accorded through the trajectory of art and literary developments in cultures of the world, there is probably no creative expression more a ‘mirror of the soul’ when it comes to mediums of ‘literary expression’ than ‘the poem’.

Poetry precedes the literary expression medium of the novel and has been a basis of inspiration for many artists including film makers such as the Russian genius –Andrei Tarkovsky whose work was very profoundly influenced by works of poetry, amongst which is also the work of his father the Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky, whose poems have even been included as voiced narratives (recited by the poet himself) in two cinematic creations –“Mirror”, and “Stalker”. And recalling a more ‘closer to home’ source, in an interview given to Bonsoir (the French Cultural ‘TV Magazine’ show) Sri Lanka’s own Cannes award winning filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara said his conception of ‘film’ is that it presents a connecting of the ‘picture’ or ‘visual image’ with the ‘poem’. Therefore, the influence of poetry on other forms of art cannot be taken lightly.

What is poetry?

The question of –what is poetry? is probably one of the most ambiguous and notorious to pin down with a clear cut answer since the evolutions in poetry and their forms chart a course dating back

to times before the ‘literacy’ became widespread. Though man has claimed to have landed on the moon and now in the process of probing Mars inside out, still, a single clear cut definition for ‘what is a poem?’ is yet to be established.

This was one of the very first revelations in literature that I was to encounter as a freshman in the Colombo varsity’s department of English, when I sat at my very first lecture of Dr. Dushyanthi Mendis’s first year class –‘an introduction to poetry’.

Certainly there are tenets that can very clearly give critical direction to ascertain what conventional conceptions would deem a piece of writing as a poem, or at least ‘poetic’; amongst which the most prominent would be the poetic ‘devices’–metaphor and simile. But this is not by any means an ‘absolutism’. And once again the matter of ‘subjectivity’ may take supremacy when it comes to poetry unlike genres such as the novel/fiction which would have more clearer ‘form(s)’ as literary creations.

The themes that may be the basis for a poem can be simply about anything since the movement of the Romantics (such as of Keats and Shelley) liberalized themes and subjects for poetry from the aristocratic bastions of exclusivity that deemed only matters of ‘epic’ thematic value validates and qualifies for, poetry. And just as much as a beggar’s plea for a slice of bread may stir the heart of the poet, needless to say politics and history have certainly played a major part in forming discourses in poetry over the generations. In fact politics and affairs of state that lead to turning points in civilizations are historicized through the medium of poetry –The Iliad and Odyssey being prime examples.

The poem ‘Cry Freedom’

In his sixth book of poems titled Still Traveling, Emeritus Professor in English language and literature Edwin Thumboo, a prolific Singaporean poet, presents a certain type of poetic narrative (not in the nature of an epic spanning voluminous verses) that captures a very marked tone of the anti-colonial, liberationist spirit, and mindset that valorizes the struggles of Asian people against British colonial rule, in a poem named “Cry Freedom”.

What struck me as an instant impression when I read the title of this particular poem is that it immediately recalled a certain film that is part of the prescribed works to be studied and discussed in an undergrad course unit offered by the Colombo varsity’s English department, on war and cinematic narratives of history. The film is “Cry Freedom” based on the life of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko who was played by Denzel Washington, directed by Richard Attenborough.

What could ‘cry’ mean?

Prof. Thumboo’s poem carries a very strong spirit of the liberationist from the point of the title itself. ‘Freedom’ as a word need not be elaborated as to what meanings it can connote and images it could conjure in the mind. But what if one were to ponder on the word ‘cry’? It could mean a cry of sorrow or cry of joy; it could even mean one of anger or consternation. And therefore the word ‘Cry’ itself can have manifold impressions connoted in the title that awakens a scheme of sentiments that may differ from one another but nevertheless speak of great emotional depths. And to those who are denied freedom the moment of gaining it may be one of superlative emotional intensities where both joys (for what lies ahead) as well as sorrows and angers (in retrospect for what was lost and denied) may find outlets of expression.

In the very opening lines Thumboo seems to encapsulate the schemes and methods of the British as colonizers and perhaps even outlines in very cursory yet accurate points the trajectory of how the mighty western power acted in Asia though it seems the particular reference is to what happened in India.

“They came; they saw; they stayed. Took by trade and treaty;

Divided, ruled through subterfuge; cunning in high places,

While relentless regiments marched, coerced and crunched.”

The first line resonated to me that legendary Caesarian line –Veni Vidi Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) and probably demonstrates the immensity of the power of the colonizer.The second line very accurately gives the ‘means’ by which the British devised their plans for gradual takeovers of territories. And of course when non-military means did not always deliver the desired result the guns would fire and troops would march in and the full ugliness of colonialism would surface.

Powerful imagery

Another very striking sentiment bespeaking the poet’s concern and sorrow over the injury done to the history and ethos of the conquered nation comes out in the line –“They stole our history, Our sky, our many voices from Kanya to Kailash.” The word ‘Kailash’ to those who are familiar with it will no doubt conjure many potent images. ‘Kailash’ is the abode of God Shiva (or Ishawara) and his consort Goddess Parvathi, and has much mythological and cultural significance in Indian epics and chronicles of which the authorship that span millennia. If the colonizers ‘stole’ the ‘many voices’ (which could be symbolic of cultural ethos and cultural consciousness of Indians) that ranged up to ‘Kailash’ is it possible that the text of the poem suggests that even an entity (metaphorically speaking of course) as sanctified and mighty as ‘Kailash’ could not resist British injury, then such a perspective surely speaks very deeply of the harm done to the indigenous culture and the people, as well as indicating the power of the colonizer.

An ‘image’ and a symbol of destiny

The poem’s doleful feeling that speaks of an aggrieved being, gains life and strength in the very tone and imagery that comes in the first couple of lines of the second paragraph –“Came a man of destiny; spun cloth, made tax-free salt, fasted. His spirit, creed and path unleashed that quiet disobedience; Unthreatening, pure non-violence that blunted brutish force, Then mustered and pledged people into unity.”

Clearly this is the turning point that India gained momentum in its struggle towards freedom which manifested in the Mahatma –M.K Gandhi. The relentless drive that thirsted in Indians for freedom and self rule was one that birthed a great legacy in the modern political history of Asia. Thumboo charts in the course of the poem’s narrative the trails that were marked with blood, sweat and tears in India’s journey towards that tryst with her destiny as a free nation.

The path to freedom in never walk in a rose garden, and the share of suffering that Indians had to bear in their collective dream of a free nation is spoken very powerfully by Thumboo very vividly. One of the lines that best encapsulates this idea can be seen in this line –“Remember India. Give me your blood and I will give you freedom.”

The bravery of freedom fighters

The terrains of jungle and mud that treacherously burdened battlers of both sides –colonial soldier and freedom fighter alike. But the Indians gained more fervor and courage to forge ahead with fortitude unrelentingly and the colonizer too found that the very land they had conquered was turning against them to favour the brave sons of the soil, the true inheritors.

“Then the rains came, too punctually, turning courage to fever, earth to mud. Felt the suck of leeches, as the roads became rivers in flood.”

This line descriptive of how the tropical terrains were a significant factor in the saga of western colonial conquests in Asia resonates something of the images that come in the stories of old when the heart of the Kandyan kingdom was a near impenetrable natural fortress which the British could not over run with sheer might of firepower, since the ingeniousness of the native Sri Lankan mind devised methods of guerilla warfare that baffled and battered the white man incurring heavy loses to the invader. In this sense there is something of Thumboo’s imagery crafted through his words projecting a captivating discursive of images that resonates well with our own Sri Lankan legacy of resistance against the British colonizer.

This in my opinion can be seen as a reflection of the bonds that can build across Asiatic nations in our collective postcolonial consciousness.

Unsung heroes and heroisms

A march towards a nation’s freedom certainly is marked with its share of unsung heroes and heroisms. And of course when thinking of how many unaccounted sighs of sorrow and pained cries in silence and pained cries that reverberate as outcries it is probably the solitary moment of one who passes his last breath in thoughts dearest to him that can stir the poetic senses to give it due depth and solemnity with the following lines –“To the sky my last look; to the earth my last touch; To my beloved, and our children, my last prayer.” It is probably a fitting ‘tribute’ to the countless unsung heroes who had fallen faceless in the coursing of history’s narrative that immortalizes some and sadly casts others into obscurity of the forgotten.

As beings who traverse our lives between the boundless sky and the immeasurable earth truly the elements that Thumboo’s words speak of evoke a profoundness in the reader to imagine what sort of emotional state could be stilled in that last moment of one who is consciously departing from the world of the living and all that he loved and willingly sacrificed his life for.

Thumboo’s poem speaks of how the drive towards the most treasured of all prizes –freedom broke down barriers of caste and creed amongst Indians in their common goal to fulfil a tryst made with destiny. And he says this evoking that historically immortalized moment of freedom at midnight when India awoke to a new day –a new beginning. The conjuring of all these images that speak of the mosaic of men and act(ion)s that charted and build the long hard road to rid India of British rule and end the British Raj is like a snapshot discursive of giving some poetic credence to who and what may not have been eternalized in official records of history.

In fact the poem “Cry Freedom” may carry in it a sense of the silent lament of those whose names and far too many to be given their due place between the hallowed pages of history. What seems to be the most valuable pearl of thought engrained in the text of the poem is what I feel is the gentle warning to the fast changing society of present and the generations to come. It is simply to know the sacrifices that were made for the liberties that are enjoyed today. It is to know that the road to freedom which offered a moment to cry in joy at the end of the journey also resounded with cries of pain and sorrow for the losses incurred, though now they may have fallen silent amidst winds of change. “Lest we forget” are words that clearly hang very onerously on the consciousness of the poet, who may have his share of apprehensions as new generations prepare to take the mantle.

A lesson and a message to posterity

“In happy faces looking at the Red Fort, knowing each day ever is now theirs, as they make big and little trysts with destiny, As we remember one which started here.” These ending lines of the poem appear to evoke a very powerful image bound message to be conveyed to present people in India. In the solemnity of a site such as the Red Fort which is very potent in its historical significance to India Thumboo offers some sagely words to those who best remember how it all started.

And what sanctity can be found through remembrance, for it is in itself a lesson to those who knew it not as a personal memory of their own. In unraveling in captivating imagery moments of great joys and pains, poetry can transport the reader, listener beyond the boundaries of geography and time.

The first decade of the new century has come to an end, and the future generations of the postcolonial world may benefit by taking the effort to rediscover the paths that were trekked by their ascendants when they resolved to undertake the journey towards freedom for a nation’s future. Transmitting memories of laughter and tears is one way of binding people across generations that speak of a common past and identity. It is one way of speaking of ‘nationhood’.

Poetry as a medium of expression has been effective for Thumboo to convey the need to keep alive sanctified memories of a nation that shed blood sweat and tears for the hope of basking in the sunshine of freedom. Yes, there is a message and a lesson to us in common in a postcolonial context -‘lest we forget’, may the memories be kept alive through our many collective voices. There lies one of the great powers of a nation to carry forth its ethos and legacy –the power to cause ‘remembrance’.