Review

Emerging contemporary Sri Lankan English poetry :

Why should we stitch our eyes?

By Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

Written in International Standard English (‘ISE’ Prof. Manique Gunasekara’s famous phrase to describe English), Jeron Daniel’s collection of poetry entitled ‘Sketches’ codifies the realm of contemporary experiences in a lucid and distinctive poetic diction. The collection, among other things, establishes a novel trend in contemporary Sri Lankan poetry in English, of course, carving a vital niche for the poet, deviating from the corrosive influence of evolving Sri Lankan pidgin which is being encouraged under the misleading phraseology such as ‘unpretentious expressions’ by plethora of so called ‘literary awards’ by and large, manipulated by literary gangs.

Sketches emerges at a time contemporary Sri Lankan English literature suffered a heavy blow due to the scores of poorly crafted literary productions under the name-sake tags of novels, poetry supported by ‘literary awards’ aimed at propagating Sri Lankan pidgin.

Paraphrased vision

One of the salient features of the collection is that it deals with myriad of themes ranging from abstract notion to life in it multitudes. The poem ‘One’ captures many issues though it is written in a simple diction with short and sharp lines. What the poet seeks to express is the importance of one step which may make a sea change.

“One
One dream, to focus all minds
One passion, to mould each child
One will, to touch a life
To build a nation just and right

….

One chance, to save a life
One word, to heal the mind
One, hug, to listen and sooth…

…..

One decision to do what’s right
One thought to end their fight
One voice to stand up for them
To redeem a nation and bring change”

A significant aspect of a poem is that it may subject to many readings and yield multiplicity of meanings. In other words, a skilfully-crafted poem may in many ways, paraphrase perceptions, insights and even the vision of the poet wittingly or unwittingly. In the poem ‘One’ the poet, Jeron Daniel has effectively paraphrased many a vision. For instance, in the first stanza, the poet spells out his vision for the nation and also deals with nation building.

Nation building

Apart from geographical territory, government and armed forces, the perception of a nation is first created in the minds of its citizens. A nation is an imaginary concept and a nation may make up of one ethnicity, creed or tribe or many ethnicities, even nationalities (as in the case of USA which is entirely made up of migrant population and people of diverse origins; such as Indian Americans). But the common thread that bounds a population of diverse origin is the fact that they all share a common dream ‘One dream, to focus all minds’ and to focus on the common destiny as its citizens.

In the next line, ‘One passion, to mould each child’, the poet expression his believe that education is a seminal factor in nation building. Nation building should be an integral part of the system of national education. Although the primary aim of education is to impart the future citizens with life skills and producing professionals, who would, in the long run, contribute to the nation’s economy, future citizens should love the nation from the bottom of the heart. A sense of patriotism should be inculcated in tender minds, primarily through literature and diverse forms of art.

A ‘nation just and right’ can only be made through ‘moulding of young minds’ or cultivating the minds. If citizens of a nation still think in terms of caste, creed, class, ethnicities or socio-economic affiliations, it is obvious that the process of nation-building had not taken place in that nation. To build a ‘nation just and right’, there should be a strong ‘will’ on the part of political leaders, policy makers and educationists who should not promote substandard form of languages (pidgin English by any name with the objective of protecting the class interest of the handful of elites, academic as well as non-academic) but to focus on imparting the future citizens with knowledge and skills that would make them fully-fledged citizens equipped to face challenges of life.

‘One will, to touch a life
To build a nation just and right’

In the following stanza the poet sums up his vision for a nation; it is a nation that should give a chance to save ‘a life’ and to heel the wounded minds and to ‘redeem a nation’ by doing ‘what is right and thereby bring about radical changes to the lives of its citizens.

“One decision to do what’s right
One thought to end their fight
One voice to stand up for them
To redeem a nation and bring change”
Life in its multitude

Experience

One of the areas that poet excels is expressing and codifying life experiences. One moment may change the entire trajectory of life and fatherly love is, perhaps, a strong feeling which would change one’s course of life. Fatherly love is skilfully captured in the poem ‘The Moment’.

“ The Moment
A delicate touch,
As she held my hand
Twinkling eyes
Overtook my plans
The first moment
I saw her smile,
I knew I’ll love her

….

I’ll love you
Care you
And cherish you each day
And here you are
My dearest daughter
You’re closets to my heart’

Apart from effectively dealing with the theme of fatherly love, the poet has shown a remarkable talent in crafting the poem. For instance, in the beginning, the reader may muse that it is an encounter of a sweet heart. However, the poet reveals the subject at the end of the poem with lines “My dearest daughter

You’re closets to my heart”

A significant aspect of Jeron’s poetry is that he employs plain words to convey a profoundly philosophical idea and is at best in paraphrasing his vision.

In ‘For I am Disabled’, the poet sketches out the mindscape of a Disabled. What is obvious is that Disabled is asking ‘life’ and right to lead a dignified life as a fully-fledged citizens and not the sympathy. The poem ends with a plea.

“Do you assume I don’t feel pain?
Each time you kick the leg that remains
Do you believe I can’t be loved,
Just because I am disabled!

….

My life thus moves on and goes
With melancholy filled episodes.

…

For I am human! I feel hurt and love
So please don’t hurt us disabled”

In poems such as ‘Resounding Release’ and ‘Her Tale’ the poet relates stories of a beggar who is dying in winter in a park and a sex worker. For these poems, the poet has effectively used narrative mode.

Significantly the poems are not without insights. The poet has craftily used expressions such as ‘The trends are akin all year around’ to suggest that the plight of the beggar has not been changed over the years. For the beggar, death is a ‘resounding release’ from the agonies of life.

“The trends are akin all year around
Today’s peculiar! I know somehow
My chest is pierced! Excruciating aches
I roar in tears, to explain my pain.”

In ‘Her Tale’, the poet relates the life story of a sex worker who is a victim of the circumstances. It is obvious that most of the sex workers have entered the oldest profession of the world due to poverty and under depressing circumstances. The narrator of the poem is the sex worker.

“An impulsive marriage led me to horror
The man I chose, abandoned me for another
Two infant girls, wailing in my arms
Through desperation and need,
I must take charge!
My purity and passion, lost forever
I’ve decided! and compromised my honor
I chose to live, by natural belief
To make a living for my children in need”
Issue of identity

Identify is a major issue particularly in a diasporic context. It has been observed that nations are increasingly becoming cosmopolitants with people of heterogeneous identities. Instead of one, people tend to share multiplicity of identities in diverse contexts. One’s identity is no longer confined to a name or religion or even nationality and one’s loyalties are also shared. For instance, American-Indian may share his or her loyalty between Indian and the USA, the adopted country. Sri Lankan-American would love Sri Lanka and America. In a globalised context, identities are fluid, not static, subject to change and constantly evolving.

“Am I what they say I am?
Or an I what I call myself?
It’s a mystery,
An unresolved conflict within me
Who am I?
Who do I believe I am?
How do I see who I am?
What are my thoughts of myself?
How much do I love myself?
That determines who I am!”

In ‘Masks’, the poet further explores the theme of identity. For diverse occasions, people wear masks and hide their identities behind them. So wearing masks has become a part and parcel of life.

“A face at work!
A face at home!
A face to kids!
Who is ‘me’?
Will I be accepted for ‘me’? ”

‘Sketches’ deals with diverse themes and socio-economic themes in a lucid diction and one of the salient aspects of the collection is that unpretentious voice and language on the part of the poet. The poet’s approach to subject matter at hand is logical and the collection stands out for its contemporaneousness. ‘Sketches’ is a rare threat for Sri Lankan English readership that has fed up with scores of substandard literary productions.

Objective comparison

It is pertinent, at least, briefly to compare and contrast ‘Sketches’ with contemporary Sri Lankan English poetry to identify, among other things, the absence of verse in some of the contemporary English poetry.

A fine example in this regard is Vivimarie Vander Poorten’s collection of poetry entitled ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’.

As earlier noted, the first poem in ‘Sketches’ is ‘One’ which is, among other things, stands out for paraphrasing a vision for the nation and poetic diction. The poet has used simple diction with apt metaphors. Whereas in Vivimarie’s collection ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’, it is noted for pretentious expressions and lack or total absence of ‘verse’.

It is worth comparing and contrasting the two poems, at least, briefly to identify the major short coming in contemporary Sri Lankan English poetry.

Cadaver

The very first poem of the anthology ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’, “Cadaver” is about the poet’s memory of a person who was apparently much closer to her. The poet attempts to communicate a simple message suggesting such memories of loved ones are like ‘tying a corpse to your back’:

‘They say the holding on to the past
is like tying a corpse
to your back and taking it along with you

……

people around you hold their noses
and avoid you like
the proverbial plague “

The poet concludes the poem with burying her memories with kisses.

“ I should untie you
from the back of my heart
dig a hole in the dark deep
night of my past
and bury you,
kisses and all”
Lack of poetic diction

Except for a couple of lines with a touch of poetic diction such as ‘dig a hole in the dark deep night of my past’, the entire poem sounds like an ordinary diary extract wrapped in an elegant packaging material with a free verse structure.

That structure often doesn’t belong to what we known as ‘blank verse’. What exactly ‘blank’ here is the verse. The exact form of the ‘poem’ is revealed when the lines are put into a paragraph.

The proposed paragraph reads: “I should untie you from the back of my heart and dig a hole in the dark deep night of my past and bury you, kisses and all”.

This is a common characteristic of most of the poems in the anthology ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’ . What the poet has accomplished in most of the instances is to report an incident, chores of a person as in the case of “Paying Homage” or in “Vadani in our Hostel”.

In ‘Sketches’ what the poet does is not to report or to put an incident (break into lines) into a black verse structure but to paraphrase a grand vision for the nation while dealing with socio-economic issues.

“One
One dream, to focus all minds
One passion, to mould each child
One will, to touch a life
To build a nation just and right

….

One chance, to save a life
One word, to heal the mind
One, hug, to listen and sooth…”

Compared to ‘Cadaver’ in ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’, ‘one’ in ‘Sketches’ stands out for its insights, vision codified in sharp and short lines and above all for the diction which is simple yet yields multiplicity of meanings.

One of the major factors that distinguishes ‘Sketches’ from ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’ is the originality in perceptions. It is obvious from the very title ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten lacks in original ideas. (The extracted title of the anthology from Pablo Neruda’s famous poem ‘Ode to Sadness’ is dubious and its meaning may be best known to the author. Perhaps, Vivimarie may find time to explain to readers what she exactly meant by the four word title of the anthology.).

It is obvious that the poorly crafted poetry such as those in ‘Stitch your eyelids shut’ cannot be eulogised with scores of ‘literary awards’ as the literary product is not worth the paper on which it is published.