The common features of Sri Lankan poetry

The collection is intended to showcase Sri Lankan poetry of the period since independence. Though I have included a few very recent poems, I have tried in the case of all three languages to highlight trends, and this has meant greater concentration on particular periods in which there were significant developments in the different fields.

These are alluded to at greater length in the introductions that precede each of the three sections, but I should draw attention here to the flowering of poetry in Sinhala and Tamil in the generation that grew up around the time of independence - and contrast it with the lack of creativity with regard to English at this time.

In what was I think the first major collection of Sri Lankan writing in English, edited in the late seventies by Ranjini Obeysekera and Chitra Fernando, the editors apologized for not including Tamil writing, with which neither was familiar.

Their selections of Sinhala poetry dwelt on poets of the fifties and then those of the seventies, substantiating the principle that art has most to say in a time of turbulence. Following the fermentation of the independence period, the next flurry of creativity was associated with the youth insurrection of 1971, both the violent events and the social traumas that preceded it and could not be ignored afterwards.

A similar catalyst for Tamil poetry was provided by the ethnic tensions that burst out into violence in the seventies and, more destructively, in the eighties. Those also contributed to the emergence of more significant writing in English, through the work in particular of Richard de Zoysa and Jean Arasanayagam. The effect of those tensions continues, and it is heartening to see recognition of common humanity in the work of Sinhala language poets too, as emphasized also in Amarakeerthi's introduction.

In the midst of all the socio-political upheavals that were the principle characteristics of the last 40 years, poets continued too to deal with personal relations with a range of sentiments. Writers in all languages capture filial affection of a sort that does not often occur in English English poetry, along with romantic feelings and sexual passion that are more common - though sometimes with distinctively Sri Lankan or South Asian overtones, as in the work of Mahakavi and Gunadasa Amerasekera and Kamala Wijeratne. Whimsicality too has its place, in Chelian and Lakdasa Wikkramasinha and Ariyawansa Ranaweera.

The plight of expatriates is explored by Sunial Govinnage and V I S Jayapalan, though it does not occur in English poetry, perhaps suggesting the lesser need to emigrate in a class that was relatively comfortable even in a Sri Lanka wracked by violence than the Sinhala and Tamil speaking. Poetry in all three languages however celebrates the joys of the landscape, the greatest compass of beauty in such a small compass anywhere in the world, as I once described it.

I have noted similarities simply because I think it is important to note what we all have in common. Remarkably, none of the poetry suggests the animosities that have obviously existed at all levels of society. The suffering our people have gone through, in particular the Tamils of the North, comes across, but recrimination based on ethnicities is remarkably absent.

I do not think this is a result of my selectivity - which was in any case governed by my colleagues - but because basically good writing shares certain values that transcend differences that are seen as contingencies. In recognition of that, I hope that this volume contributes to the development of a common Sri Lankan identity, which can appreciate and celebrate differences whilst enhancing mutual understanding.

-RW