Beyond Plain Reading

W. H Auden, in his dirge for Yeats, de­clared that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’, giving sensitive poets a line with which to garrote verse.

If poetry is ineffectual, why does Auden himself lament for Yeats in poetic nuances? And what about Shelley who, deeply moved by the cir­cumstances of Keats’s death, wrote the mag­nificent pastoral elegy “Adonais”—one of the greatest tributes ever paid by one poet to an­other.

The fact is that Auden perhaps did not really agree with himself. He was simply duded up in the cynical masque of a man who wonders at a world that rotates on, manically involved with its mundane exer­tions, unmindful of the exit of remarkable talent from its midst.

Maybe political rhetoric or the calculus of science does breed stasis but as far as poetry is concerned, it does have a faculty to send ripples into the human soul through its thought process. Poetry is not literary lint or thought unworthy of a paragraph or random words tossed on the page. In fewer words, poetry says more than prose. Verses should not mean but be—this is the secret of readable poetry, which is nothing but a slice of life.

John Keats lived only 25 years, yet in a short life-span, he enriched the English lan­guage with some of its greatest poems. ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ is an unforgettable classic.

He once wrote—“We read five things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the Author”.

Displaying myriad literary influences, and speaking in many voices, the poet always tries to, with the needle of irony and ecstasy, weave his way through the warp of the past and present.

The power of his message is gauged by its tendency to generate cathar­sis among readers. The more the people attach themselves to each and every twist of his written word, the more consequen­tial it possibly can prove.

It is not always true that poetry is some­thing that the poet creates outside of his own personality. It is not also always something related to alter ego.

Usually, personal experi­ences and experiments creep in, insomuch that at times all poems seem identical. If one skims two lines of any poem, one shudders and comes to know the truth; they all mention ‘Love’s fra­grant bower’.

And silvery snowflakes, ruined hearts, autumn’s grief, beauty darts, deep eyes, ocean of sorrows, echoing silence etc. etc., render them utterly redundant. But in readable poetry, the spontaneous flux of feelings and emo­tions amalgamate with subtle realities and moving truths of life.

And the poet gives all such intangible impressions the wings of words and makes them fly where we could not. From cataclysmic social reforms to the tumultuous transformation of conquerors into footnotes—poetry all along has been a great exponent.

Whether it is Allama’s indomitable ‘Shaheen’ (falcon), Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’ or Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’or Agha Shahid’s ‘Rizwan’—every poet has in­vented characters to put emotion into meas­ure.

Emotion, certainly, has come by nature, and the measure has been acquired by art: The art of sophistication, naiveté and sublimity to distill the essential meanings of both secular and sacred emotion in individual and general life, beyond the narrowness of catchphrases and capsule philosophies.

So, what Auden decreed can’t be enter­tained in totality until poetry continues to be tasted, swallowed, and digested. And altogether, what he asserted can be equally true for every printed word, poetry or prose. Unless people don’t read, nothing can actually happen.

Writers may churn out their ideas, poets may craft out their feelings, and thinkers may turn out their thoughts. But for whom? This is a moot point. The impact factor or otherwise of any communication is a secondary subject unless the recipient reacts.

Every communication requires a recipient, a user, and that too the one who can reflect and respond. Or else communication cannot qualify to be called ‘communication’.

They say we become the books we read. Ironically, how many of us around first read? Then how do several of us reflect? And finally, how do few of us react? Some just add to the number of books they read without even a word drenching them! They glance over each page, but they don’t live the books.

The percentage is dismal and discouraging for any intellectual discourse or growth in any society. The mental inertia and sickness has got so embedded that many of us have forgotten that we can think, speak up and counter.

The all-prevailing culture of mediocrity and manipulation has been so overbearing and bossy that we have left believing that there is also something called ‘Good’ that has immense value and meaning.

We wonder what use to think when many of us and our seniors present the worst examples of hypocrisy; and what use to question when many of us display the nastiest traits of dishonesty.

The fact is we live in a society where people who claim that they can read, don’t do so because their eyes are bloated with tears, the tears of a crocodile.

Their all acts are blinkered with deception and doublespeak, and that’s the greatest tragedy for all of us as a nation.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author.

The facts, analysis, assumptions and perspective appearing in the article do not reflect the views of GK