A glimpse into the world of poetry

An Evening of poetry and music:

by Indeewara Thilakarathne and Ranga Chandrarathne

[email protected]

An evening of Poetry and Music presented by the English writers' cooperative of Sri Lanka was held at the Goethe Institute last Tuesday.

More than anything else the event was unique owing to the classical music score intermittently played by renowned musicians and the subtle music of intonation in the rich collection of poetry.

The evening was commenced with Gluck; the dance of the blessed spirit from Orfeo Ed Euridice. Orpheus, Euridice, Hermes Rainer Maria Rilke translated by Anne Ranasinghe one of the best translated poems read out. Anne being an excellent translator has captured the innermost soul of the poem and read it out with apt emotions.

"She was already root

And when abruptly

the gold restrained her, and with great sadness

uttered the fatal words: he has turned around-

she did not understand and softly questioned; who? "

So the trick works and Hades takes back Eurydice. Eurydice silently walks back on the same path that leads to the land of death. Perhaps, the above lines capture the essence of the story. So live is instinctive and it expresses itself perhaps at time most unwarranted with catastrophic results.

'Last Poem' is a poem by Robert Desnos originally written in French and was translated into English by Regi Siriwardena.

Given the circumstances under which the poet wrote it, it is obvious the poet's wife is no more. For Desnos wrote 'Last Poem' from a Nazi concentration camp during 1939-45.

"All that is left is to become

a shadow among the shadows, darker than dark:

a shadow that will walk now and again

across the sunlight of your life"

The poet has a blurred memory of his wife and that memory soon fades into darkness. However, it would recur again and again. 'Debate' a Sinhala poem translated by Lakshmi de Silva from 'A Sri Lankan Anthology' among other things was outstanding among the translations. It was read out by Neluka Silva and Tissa Abeysekara. The poem is on a 'debate' or rather a conversation in verse between poetess Gajaman Nona and Mudliyar Elepata.

Elepata was in love with Gajaman Nona. It is one of the complex poems to be translated into English. The English translation of the poem has its own merits.

The poem which won the first place in the Poetry and Short Story Competition 2008 by the English Writers' Cooperative of Sri Lanka, "Thinking of You" is a poignant verse, perhaps, written in memory of a lover.

Here Rajaratnam Shanthini expresses mix feeling of a lover, perhaps departed now. Thinking of the lover would rekindle the happy moments and also the painful separation. The last stanza sums up the bondage between the lovers and how each other complemented the other's life.

"What ever is the pain

Knowing you

Makes me feel full

Full of sadness

And full of happiness"

This sense of being 'full' is a mix feeling.

At time it is happiness and at another time, it is sadness. However it is a kind of 'fullness'.

The poet has not used a simple diction with common place similes such as "like the orange fireball over the trees".

'Messages, love and Mushrooms' by Yen Anne Shih which won the second prize in the competition is once again on the theme of love and separation though it is temporary separation in this instance. The poet describes the very notion of 'life' which is different from one person to another and on diverse occasions.

"What means life for one, makes no life for another - that's clear

Life is life they say, but while living it,

There's stuff that matters, I fear;

There are things worth waiting for it appears

Like planes, trains, emails, telephone calls, letters

Romance, love and mushrooms"

In a globalised set up people of different social status and who are under different circumstance try to find the notion of 'life'. Scholarship, a grant or snap of a rare mushroom, planes, trains, emails, telephone calls, letters and romance and love are things that matter.

The two poems in the first part of reading; Alfreda de Silva's 'Hopper Girl' and Michael Ondaatje's 'The Cinnamon Peeler' (1989) deal with the subject of love making in a rural set up.

In the "Hopper Girl", the poet describes a farmer who comes into a farm house and his chance encounter with a village lass who is cooking hoppers.

Here poet Alfreda de Silva in a restrained language describes the mounting emotions of the man Juxtaposing it with cooking hoppers.

'Cinnamon Peeler' by Michael Ondaatje is about myriads of love affairs the cinnamon peeler has.

'this is how you touch other women

The grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.

And you search your arms

for the missing perfume

...I am the cinnamon peeler's wife smell me'

So the cinnamon peeler's wife has cinnamon smell which cannot be found on a grass cutter's wife or lime burner's daughter.

Although a cinnamon peeler has had many affairs, it seems that the cinnamon peeler's wife accepts the fact quite naturally. But cinnamon peeler wont leave any sign with either lime burner's daughter or grass cutter's wife not even without 'a pleasure of scar'.

Sita Kulatunga's "Pitu Padam Namamaham" touches on social issues which compel women to seek employment in the Middle East. Here the husband is a drunkard who attacks his wife with his foot.

When she leaves her daughter to earn some Dirams, she warns of the father who would hit with foot and may cause harm.

"Pitu padang nama mahang

Beware of him in every way

not only of his foot"

The drunkard father may sexually abuse the child. In a simple diction and with economy of words, the idea of danger is conveyed.

The use of very words in an ironic sense which otherwise use to adore father, brings sharp wit and conveys the idea that relationship between father and daughter has changed from one of being a guardian to a potential abuser.