Article
Prayers in Solitude
_w336.jpg)
January 18, 2006
A: The quality that we call poetic is not limited only to poetry. It is a very ancient aesthetic and spiritual quality. It permeates all art forms. The poetic state is the basis of all existence. Poetry, the way I see it, is about the constant journey towards the magic and adventure of words. Instead of saying that it is superior to other literary forms, one could rather say that poetry, as a form, is capable of opening up at heightened levels the aesthetics implicit in all other literary forms. That is why a novelist or a short story writer in more profound moments cannot help being poetic. Even the last line of the Communist Manifesto that says “they have nothing to lose but have a golden world to gain” is able to distil its essential message through a richly poetic image.
Q: Can you discuss the directions your work has taken over the years?
A: My poetry has journeyed through many different routes. There was a movement in Tamil begun by the Vanambadigal group to create a popular form of poetry. It had an impact on many young people and I was one of them. Humanist ideas based on common sense and surface-level socio-political feelings shaped my poetry of early years. But very soon I moved on to Marxism. I wrote some serious political poetry in the early eighties in the journals brought out by Marxist-Leninist groups. But very soon the aesthetic dryness peculiar to Marxist movements and Stalinist social and literary theories began to suffocate me. The sentences I wrote began to mock me. Marxism had no answer for my basic questions on death. Existential questions began to take an important place in my poetry. But running parallel to my poetry in a constant and inevitable manner has been a political perspective.
Q: How do you locate yourself in the context of contemporary Tamil poetry?
A: I can’t make any clear statements about either my place in the context of Tamil poetry or, for that matter, that of anyone else. One could say that I represent one of the several trends in contemporary Tamil poetry. This trend emphasises the need to view poetry from a literary perspective and not through frozen ideas. as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, there are no ideological movements. We don’t have major socio-political movements or overt displays of violence that disrupt the routine of everyday life. But there is a spiritual vacuum and an innate violence in the Tamil community that is reaching an extreme these days. My poetry is created from personal darkness, from constant prayers articulated in solitude by a person living in a parasitic culture that has no place for ideals or grand dreams.
Q: What is the state of contemporary Tamil poetry, in your opinion?
A: I only feel a great depression regarding contemporary Tamil poetry. A lot of poetry is being written. Today the media has expanded enough to publish this poetry. But again and again I get the feeling that poetry is dying. There are very few poets who have an identity of their own, who can adequately negotiate the challenges of poetry. Various types of mediocre poetry are growing in number like white ants. They are casually trodden upon by the reader. In the last decade, compared to modern fiction, modern poetry has not taken up new challenges.
Q: Who are the writers (Tamil or otherwise) who have shaped – tangentially or directly – your work and how?
A: I belong to the generation that inherited the madness for poetry from Subramania Bharati. The poetic content in the writings of important Tamil writers like Mauni, La Sa Ramamridham and Sundara Ramaswamy pulls one towards poetry. It may seem strange that I reached poetry through Tamil fiction. But that is the truth. Pramil’s poetry introduced me to the wild screaming torrents of images and Nagulan’s poetry showed me an immense and communicable peace. I have reservations about the social comments in Gnanakoothan’s poetry. But he is the one who has brought to modern Tamil poetry the many absurdities of Tamil life. One could say that through this he created a new language for the tradition. Kalapriya, in the voice of a storyteller, brought to Tamil poetry hitherto unexplored areas and cultural underpinnings. After these people, Atmanam and Sukumaran have shaped my poetic personality. Their poetry naturally resonated with my questions on existence. These are the people who have shaped my poetry.
Q: Are there any recurrent themes/ tropes in your work?
A: Images relating to death, rejection and waiting follow my poetry like shadows. I wonder if they constitute the basic core of my existence.
Excerpts from an email interview in which Manushya Puthiran tells what it means to write from personal darkness in a culture that has no place for ideals or dreams.
Q: Why poetry? What does it mean to you? A: The quality that we call poetic is not limited only to poetry. It is a very ancient aesthetic and spiritual quality. It permeates all art forms. The poetic state is the basis of all existence. Poetry, the way I see it, is about the constant journey towards the magic and adventure of words. Instead of saying that it is superior to other literary forms, one could rather say that poetry, as a form, is capable of opening up at heightened levels the aesthetics implicit in all other literary forms. That is why a novelist or a short story writer in more profound moments cannot help being poetic. Even the last line of the Communist Manifesto that says “they have nothing to lose but have a golden world to gain” is able to distil its essential message through a richly poetic image.
Q: Can you discuss the directions your work has taken over the years?
A: My poetry has journeyed through many different routes. There was a movement in Tamil begun by the Vanambadigal group to create a popular form of poetry. It had an impact on many young people and I was one of them. Humanist ideas based on common sense and surface-level socio-political feelings shaped my poetry of early years. But very soon I moved on to Marxism. I wrote some serious political poetry in the early eighties in the journals brought out by Marxist-Leninist groups. But very soon the aesthetic dryness peculiar to Marxist movements and Stalinist social and literary theories began to suffocate me. The sentences I wrote began to mock me. Marxism had no answer for my basic questions on death. Existential questions began to take an important place in my poetry. But running parallel to my poetry in a constant and inevitable manner has been a political perspective.
Q: How do you locate yourself in the context of contemporary Tamil poetry?
A: I can’t make any clear statements about either my place in the context of Tamil poetry or, for that matter, that of anyone else. One could say that I represent one of the several trends in contemporary Tamil poetry. This trend emphasises the need to view poetry from a literary perspective and not through frozen ideas. as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, there are no ideological movements. We don’t have major socio-political movements or overt displays of violence that disrupt the routine of everyday life. But there is a spiritual vacuum and an innate violence in the Tamil community that is reaching an extreme these days. My poetry is created from personal darkness, from constant prayers articulated in solitude by a person living in a parasitic culture that has no place for ideals or grand dreams.
Q: What is the state of contemporary Tamil poetry, in your opinion?
A: I only feel a great depression regarding contemporary Tamil poetry. A lot of poetry is being written. Today the media has expanded enough to publish this poetry. But again and again I get the feeling that poetry is dying. There are very few poets who have an identity of their own, who can adequately negotiate the challenges of poetry. Various types of mediocre poetry are growing in number like white ants. They are casually trodden upon by the reader. In the last decade, compared to modern fiction, modern poetry has not taken up new challenges.
Q: Who are the writers (Tamil or otherwise) who have shaped – tangentially or directly – your work and how?
A: I belong to the generation that inherited the madness for poetry from Subramania Bharati. The poetic content in the writings of important Tamil writers like Mauni, La Sa Ramamridham and Sundara Ramaswamy pulls one towards poetry. It may seem strange that I reached poetry through Tamil fiction. But that is the truth. Pramil’s poetry introduced me to the wild screaming torrents of images and Nagulan’s poetry showed me an immense and communicable peace. I have reservations about the social comments in Gnanakoothan’s poetry. But he is the one who has brought to modern Tamil poetry the many absurdities of Tamil life. One could say that through this he created a new language for the tradition. Kalapriya, in the voice of a storyteller, brought to Tamil poetry hitherto unexplored areas and cultural underpinnings. After these people, Atmanam and Sukumaran have shaped my poetic personality. Their poetry naturally resonated with my questions on existence. These are the people who have shaped my poetry.
Q: Are there any recurrent themes/ tropes in your work?
A: Images relating to death, rejection and waiting follow my poetry like shadows. I wonder if they constitute the basic core of my existence.
© Arundhathi Subramaniam
Translator: C.S. Lakshmi
Sponsors
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère