Poetry : The Healing Touch
MALASHRI LAL
The millennium dawned with a UN pledge on poverty eradication, environmental protection, human rights and care of the vulnerable. Less than two decades from then, it is clear that dislocations, exile, migrations and displacements have brought new forms of violence to civil society in many parts of the world. As waves of people move through perilous borders—Cypress, Myanmar, Syria, Eritrea, Tibet, to name a few—does poetry have a role in preserving the softer sentiments of humankind, such as emotions of love and nurture, community cohesion, home and belonging, scent of the soil, or even legitimate mourning? I want to briefly suggest that poetry is the intrinsic healing power available to us in these troubled times, and poets can and do uphold certain humanistic values. Let me quote Audre Lorde, “. . . poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of light within which we can predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.”(Poetry Is Not a Luxury, 1985).
In the context of India and its ancient tradition of poetry as a comprehensive art form (Natyashastra), that is, furthermore, multilingual and intrinsically linked to dance, music and performance, what are the distinctive features of Indian poetry in English and English translation? How can a new journal contribute to a paradigm of poetry as a healer of fragmented selves? One may remember Rabindranath Tagore’s anguished call, “When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.” That, to my mind legitimises the ‘uses’ of poetry in contemporary contexts. Through the sufferings laid upon human beings by acts of violence not of their own making, the transcendent question about the ‘cause’ has to be answered by the self too. Only poetry reflects these inner dialogues, the cracked mirror of troubled consciousness, the silent cry of those who have travelled beyond tears. The language of poetry lies in its authenticity, not in a linguistic category or a region. Hence, poetry in English in India can convey the same poignancy as any regional language, its value residing in principles of integrity and genuineness.
Turning to the inaugural issue of the IPPL journal, the focus on ‘Poetry: At the Heart of the Nation,’ draws attention to humanistic concerns. In Keki Daruwalla’s poem, the ‘allegory of dreams’ is to be decoded through acts of memory, in K Satchidanandan’s words, thorns and flowers are indistinguishable as a language of experience, in Bashabi Fraser’s imagery, fireflies are figures of hope urging us ‘to join their dance of true freedom/From fear.’ In other words, the fragmented societies that we inhabit and where we tread with muffled steps, is an arena of uncertainty in which word, image, text become our solace. Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of freedom was one of inclusion: ‘A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.’ Seventy years after Independence, our poets are asking what signposts we have passed and where we are heading. The answers in poetry will stay in the realm of speculation and therefore within creative truth telling. This indeterminacy in civilizational destiny passes beyond language, beyond English. As Sankha Ghosh writes in Bengali, translated as ‘The Sound of Wings’—we all demonstrate loss, panic, and a desperate bid to ‘hold hands’ in a groping darkness of silent exits.
Homelessness, both real and psychic, mark the landscapes in the poetry of Sanjukta Dasgupta and Subodh Sarkar, and others in this collection. Spaces are filled by people with minds crowded by a melange of inchoate images and half articulated questions. The haunting possibility is that we are all ‘nowhere’ men and women unless we cling to some humanistic ideals. What are they? Do they exist in the identity politics of today? Poetry asks these foundational questions—variously—but soulfully.
The Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library offers contemporary space for exploring social reality in India through creative tools. Its unique interlinking of three components reunites the facets artificially separated by colonial education in India. That education divided English from its vernacular ‘others’, a most unfortunate condition until the reconfiguration of Indian Writing in English started in the 1980s. Despite this divided legacy, poetry in English commanded a bright little space in all the controversy surrounding creativity in the language. Perhaps the allusive language of Indo-English poetry, the sophisticated form, and its elitist readership preserved the poetry and also propelled its growth in protected enclaves of poetry lovers in cosmopolitan space. But poetry in English now belongs to the voice of the people and translation has brought many languages in conjunction, fortunately. To return to my opening argument in favour of poetry’s healing capability, it’s a form that needs to reach out evermore to communities, to reinstate its glory of being voice and presence, message and emblem. Towards that goal, poetry’s allied arts must join force. IPPL’s multipronged approach to engaging poetry with culture and performance, society and nation is both laudable and timely.
