DEFINING POETRY
Dr. Jernail S. Anand
You may define what is ‘lava’ – the molten hot fuming stuff that bolts out of the mountains, but can you determine in what shape it will spill out? Yes, after it erupts, then, you can put it in different containers, say, a glass, a jug, a bucket. But, these shapes which you determine, are not ‘lava’. Lava is the original form of the molten matter which splits the layers of mountains and flows out at will.
Are we defining poetry? It appears, but I am sceptic about calling it a definition of poetry, which, in its pristine and original form, is a hot liquid flowing from the inside of a poet, like the Ganges from the hair of Shiva. And it is in its purest form. Only fire. Unconcerned. Uncontaminated. And its purpose is neither to give light, nor to destroy. It is the will of gods, the liquid which serves godly purposes. They determine from where it will bolt forth, to which direction it will flow and whether it will destroy something or create.
The tall claims that poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling approximate the creation of poetry, the conditions under which poetry is created, and here too, the word ‘spontaneous’ underlines the fact that it is not in the conscious domain. Nobody can force a poem out of the ribs of a poet. Personally, I think poetry cannot be defined. Because definition means putting something in a cage, a prison.
Poetry is not a bird which can be encaged. Words are prisons and we carry them like boobytraps. Every thought we think can be trapped. But in case of emotions and feelings, all these traps may fail to pin them down. Poetry is a fleeting moment, a flying emotion, which can be described [no captured] with the help of images, it is a state of mind which can be transferred with the help of metaphors. It should be captured. It cannot be zeroed in. It cannot be deciphered.
What William Wordsworth felt or what T.S. Eliot said, I have no feud with them. They were the masters of the word and have all authority to say what they have said. Millions of students and lovers of literature have used their definitions of poetry in their discussions and write ups. But, it will be wrong to think that the essence of poetry has been imprisoned in their words. Nothing can be said about it. I have said what I have felt. While writing poetry, we never think of William Wordsworth, or Coleridge, or even T.S. Eliot. We simply write poetry. After writing it, when we go over it again, then we can find ‘here it is like Wordsworth’.. here, it is like Keats. Before writing poetry, such ‘followship’ is simply out of question. Every poet thinks in his own unique way; sifts the matter in his own personal way; what he knows and what he does not know, these too are his personal domains. Poetry cannot be an art practised by a few people, like music or art. I have serious problems when we go to the extent of thinking that poetry can be learnt as an art form. No.
We can learn the appreciation of poetry. Millions of teachers in universities and colleges are engaged in this exalted profession. It is a profession, which is far lower a domain than passion for poetry. There are examples of teachers who for forty years teach the Paper of Poetry to their Postgraduate students, who earn first class and top the university charts, but these teachers have never penned down a poem themselves. It is all about the Passion and the Profession. The passion cannot be taught, or learnt. It is an original flow, and gods choose which mountain will burst, and when, and when the ‘lava’ will flow.
A few words, rhyming or non-rhyming, scripted on a paper and collected in a book – are not poetry. How poetry is conceived and created is a job not restricted to a pen or a paper. The impulse comes from behind, from the heart of the poet, from the mind, and makes the pen work, dropping words here and there, and these words, like seeds, keep lying on the paper, until they are picked up by an eager mind. Poetry has to be considered in three domains: Before it reaches the paper, the text, and after it is licked up from the paper by the reader. I have often talked about the cloud syndrome. An impulse sets a poet’s mind astir, and it brings into motion, all that the poet has read or heard with regard to that impulse. If it is powerful enough, it can start flowing like rain from the catchment areas among the hills, and turn into a rivulet. The text keeps lying and waiting on the paper. Its function is over only when it is read out causing a turmoil in the heart of the reader. This convulsive aspect of a poem is very important. Poetry afflicts the poet, forces him to write it down, and then, it is the reader in whose mind this ‘lava’ weaves its revolutionary patterns.
Dr Jernail Singh Anand, President of the International Academy of Ethics, is author of 161 books in English poetry, fiction, non-fiction, philosophy and spirituality. He was awarded Charter of Morava, the great Award by Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade and his name was engraved on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. The Academy of Arts and philosophical Sciences of Bari [Italy] honoured him with the award of an Honourable Academic. Recently, he was awarded Doctor of Philosophy [Honoris Causa] by the University of Engg and Management, Jaipur. Recently, he organized an International Conference on Contemporary Ethics at Chandigarh. His most phenomenal book is Lustus:The Prince of Darkness [first epic of the Mahkaal Trilogy].
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