The Nuances of Poetry: The Context(s) of Writing and Reading

by

Bini B.S.

Poetry as an art form and musical expression predates literacy as it was integral to ancient oral traditions and rituals across the world. In common parlance, it comes across as a literary creation wherein the beautiful or sublime are evoked without the compulsive onus of engaging in rational thinking or resorting to narrative rendition. That does not mean that poetry is illogical and exists only in the abstract realms of feelings, emotions, imagination and fantasy. Poetry may also contain elements of philosophy and science; it can remain intensely personal or be overtly political. The engagements with language and time in poetry are also so varying; one can tap the subliminal and abstract possibilities of language or dwell in the mundane. Poetry may reinvent history; critique the present and prophecy the future. A poet may be concerned about one’s times and mindful of history, or intend only to confess the innermost feelings and experiences through verse. Poetry may give the reader a taste of personal or cultural memory and make one reflect on the times. It may intoxicate one by submerging the senses in the ecstasy of mellifluous sound and beautiful expressions and thus make one be forgetful of surroundings. Poetry comes in diverse guises in the contexts of its writing/production and reading/reception.
The generic term, 'poetry' is highly problematic. Poetry has myriad avatars: an aesthetic experience, a pleasurable medley of music and meaning, a quest for profound truths, a vision of life, a sensitive portrayal of society, an invitation to traverse the secret recesses of mind, a clarion call for change and many more. Poetry thus eludes the fixity of a definition and the convenience of classification even if one discusses it with reference to schools of poetry and literary movements. The term itself proves inadequate to denote a particular genre of literature as one comes across the bewildering variety of poems and other writings in verse that differ so much in form, style and content. Like in the case of any other creative expression governed by imagination, emotion and sensitivity to surroundings and time, rules of poetry cannot be formulated, nor can one quantify its uses. Precisely for these reasons, it is impossible to decide whether poetry is inspired or it results from intentional contemplation; if one should be writing according to the norms to rhythm, rhyme and meter or ignore them altogether; if poetry fulfils some social obligation or is written for sheer aesthetic enjoyment; whether it responds to or grows out of a context or transcends the context; whether it dreams of a changed world or looks back nostalgically at distant or recent pasts and the like. The context(s) of the production and reception of poetry and the milieu of the poet are significant and one has to seek answers to all such queries with regard to these. So while viewing poetry from any perspective, one cannot rest in the comfort zones of generalization.

Plato wanted to banish poets from his ideal republic fearing them to be a menace that could lead people astray into the abstract, insane realms of the unreal. Poets are also seen as visionaries endowed with prophetic powers and insight. In many ancient cultures, they were respected as supreme artists inevitable to assure the mental health of society. Poetry is also expected by many scholars and poets themselves to be a great moral and ethical force with its didactic appeal and penetrative power.
Poetry has the potential to depict social crisis, the confusions and agonies of an era and the troubles and tribulations in a poignant manner. It has played a stunning variety of roles and fulfilled several functions in different contexts in history. During the French and Russian revolutions, Indian freedom movement, political movements in Latin America and Africa, Naxalite movement and similar situations, poetry could add fuel to the passion of people. But poetry cannot be reduced to propaganda. Propagandist poets are easily forgotten if their appeal is momentary. To seep into the psyche of people and influence emotions, poetry needs more techniques than mere eloquence and demagoguery. Mayakovsky, Yates, Tagore, Subrahmanya Bharati and Neruda are still remembered because they took poetry to a different level than propaganda. A poet’s sway on society and people is an enigmatic phenomenon in that it cannot be measured in terms of the impact and its quality cannot be assessed.
Poetry with its simplicity and beauty becomes a powerful weapon and vehicle of expression. It, on certain occasions, descended the ivory tower and communicated in a voice that was heard by eager ears. Poetry triggers mass movements and invokes people when it straddles thoughts and feelings, intellect and emotions and thus appeals for action. A poet becomes immortal when each passing generation is able to relate to the thoughts, emotions and experiences contained in his/her lines. A poet is thus reinvented and reinterpreted in and across time. Milton envisaged literature to have a life beyond life; poetry lives many lives in different spaces and times and is not embalmed in the finality of a fixed meaning or response.
The theme of poetry is a debatable issue if one takes a prescriptive stand. Poetry is deemed to be a subjective art, but the artist is subjected to the influences of his/her context. Though the personal and experiential elements are predominant in the writing and reading of poetry, these processes are not insular to the socio-cultural contexts and political scenario in which a person as a writer or reader is part of. Poetry may have a confessional vein, the need to reveal the unbearable joys and pains may motivate one to pen a poem of love, parting, loss, guilt and fear. Poets choose to respond to his times in nuanced ways and readers associate different themes and meanings according to their perspectives. Revolutionaries, feminists and marginalized groups like Dalits have used poetry as an eye opener and in their hands the pen became mightier than the sword. Poetry can challenge several types of dominations; it can be iconoclastic and a subversive activity. This is the reason why poets like Ken Saro Wiwa are silenced by banishment, torture or death.
The relationship between poetry and music is ambivalent. Poetry can be musical and music may come under the category of poetry. The dividing line between these two genres is blurred. Not only that, music can give a new life to poetry and poetry can be the heart of music. Rhyme and rhythm intensify the aesthetic experience poetry conveys and also help the meaning to linger longer in memory. At the same time, too much insistence on musical elements and rigidity of form may lead to certain compromises with the power and freedom of poetic expression. Meter, rhythm and rhyme, in the case of classicists became very restrictive. In contemporary poetry, many writers prefer not to be constrained by metrical patterns and musical elements. Moreover, popular music and film songs raise the claims to be ‘sung’ poetry in contrast to ‘recited’ poetry. The fine demarcations between song and poetry appear irrelevant. Old Hindi film music is an example of this. Experiments on poetic form and style have yielded refreshing and highly innovative results and such experiments may never come to a finis.
The translatability of poetry is another intriguing issue; how to represent the cultural context in which it is produced and how to take it to new cultural contexts wherein it is received is important. Complex figures of speech, idiomatic expressions and the lie make the translation of poetry more complex. Free translations become a new creations altogether and one need not lament that.
Poetry can explore the possibilities of innovativeness in language, music and visual impact by coining new words and idioms, inventing new rhythms and rhymes, structuring the appearance of the poem on paper and combining it with other art forms. Poetry can draw a vivid and vibrant picture with words through symbolism and use of imagery and be mellifluous like melodies. It can play in the background of dance and give soul to music. It can ascend to the sublime and the transcendental, hover in epic and philosophical heights and also percolate into the public sphere and the domain of popular culture. In that way poetry knows no limits and breaks up and breaks into boundaries.