The Artistry of Patchwork Quilts

Deepa Agarwal

 

Dust-Decked Rainbow Quilts

By Laksmisree Banerjee. Penprints Publishers, Kolkata, 2023. Pages 103; ISBN: 978-819667772. Price ₹ 250, $30

 

Review by: Deepa Agarwal

 

Dust-Decked Rainbow Quilts—an intriguing title for a poetry collection, yet so apt for eminent academic and poet Dr. Laksmisree Banerjee’s latest offering.

 

I had the pleasure of reviewing Laksmisree’s earlier collection The Blue Phoenix and Other Poems some time ago and thus have some familiarity with the poet’s compelling inner world.

In her preface she provides the explanation a reader might seek for the title. Referring to her perspective both as humanist and womanist she states: “the metaphor of the “Quilt” has been deliberately used from the usage or context of Feminist Historiography in which the artistry of embroidered or patchwork quilts or crocheted bedspreads, made by Women across ages and geo-spaces, becomes the archetypal crux of Women’s Stories.”

The term “dust decked” itself offers a clue to her unique and skilful handling of language that the reader will encounter over and over again in this collection. The distinctive prism of her imagination throws up many such phrases that have an enduring resonance. It is indeed a mark of the poet’s calibre that she negotiates the maze of poetic language with such a practised felicity. We rarely think of dust as something ornamental and this rare juxtaposition evokes both the past and the beauty of oft ignored, rarely appreciated toil of women.

 

the trapped sunshine of hues sprinkle all over

from the riotous tints of bygone ages

embroidered coverlets of centuries

of female trajectories buried from sight

or their parallel humans in subaltern blight

of captive lives emitting culture- soaked light

    to illumine our lucent todays

The poet uses a familiar device—invoking the past to find meaning in the present but her singular vision sketches a pattern that is her own inimitable creation. The same unusual use of language adds a particular luminosity to the poem “People’s Poet Jayanta Mahapatra: in Fond Memory” in which she pays homage to the iconic poet who left us so recently.

the calm of your cherry pain

leavening our shredded soul

your wincing butterflies wing

    through our ambrosial manna

These are indeed words replete with multilayered meaning.

The themes of Banerjee’s poetry are wide ranging. However, certain tropes become evident as you examine the poems deeply. Her “womanist” concerns come across strongly in poems like “Silent Scream” and “Object D’Art”. The plight of women who have no control over their lives is expressed in stark unsparing terms in the former:

 

Worship, immersion, festivity, facades

all drown fading into memories and births

of generations of women with silent screams

    dying every instant with their fortitude of dreams

The objectification of women is set forth in “Object D’Art” in intense and graphic language, where the newly wed is portrayed as a puppet whose role has been predetermined by others.

She was reconstructed

with finery, jewellery

a good status-symbol

    for private use and public display---

While poems like these may decry the ways of patriarchy, she also finds joy in man-woman relationships. In the poem “Love Marriage” she uninhibitedly celebrates the union of two bodies and the overall tone is one of hope.

 

we have pilfered time for loving each other

in the surge of the storm wheezing past

    the turbulence of deep silent permeation

 

“Rivers Meet” similarly reads like an ode to love, though its mood is somewhat melancholy as it dwells on the tenuousness of human relationships.

Her humanist side and her social consciousness are evident in poems like “On A Greyhound from London To Northampton”, which is a scathing commentary on racism when a white bus driver brutally forces some coloured passengers off a bus.

 

That was an eye-opening day though

with squally skies and a blurred vision

when the cosmic lights went off

darkness prevailed more within

than in the arrogant winds outside,

the usual crowd of white predominance

with a minuscule of blacks and browns,

a thick smoke of supremacy clogged

    the free flowing air with spurts in frowns  

 

“Siachen (To the Unknown Soldier)” dwells upon the plight of those anonymous guardians of our frontiers with deep empathy.

 

On the highest battlefield of this cold-hot world

we are the ones who script forgotten, illegible history

sing unsung heroic songs of bravery often erased

we the ones who dance in the silence of doom

we live and die in anonymity, in glory gone silly

give up lives, families for our national family

     still we remain ever decided sentinels of freedom ---

 

Banerjee paints vivid mindscapes with great energy.  The brilliant colours that ornament her poetry—coral and azure, indigo and sapphire add a particular radiance to her verses. While her poetic pallete is incandescent with colour, she adeptly brings a chiaroscuro of darkness and light into play as well, which adds another dimension to her poetry. The five elements—earth, air, fire, space and water are also evoked to convey poetic meaning as in the poems “Rain Rhapsody”, which plays joyful tribute to nature’s healing power:

 

Look Mommy, the rains have created magic

Clumps glossy plumaged

I see these silver slivers

Lancing the earth playfully

With so much tender chuckle

Slanted splinters of watery crackers

Implosions of sky and earth

 

This multi-dimensional poetic sensibility can be experienced in several other poems as she presents a variety of points of view to illuminate different facets of meaning. Indeed, Banerjee’s poetic voice is almost like a clarion call alerting the reader to possibilities that might have escaped their notice. She is all heart and spirit and her passion for life and living is vividly evident as she negotiates the high and low notes of language with consummate skill. The poem “Chance Meeting” reads like an affirmation of faith. After beginning with the traumatic scene “where mutinous mobs ran, at each other’s throats”, in the end there is exuberant celebration:

God reappeared in the skies blessing me

As I cried in joy, my hands stretched upward

“Yes I have found him—I have found my answer

It is love, love, the endless River of Life”--

 

Thus, while she bewails the imperfection of human existence and throws merciless lights on the dark fissures in our society, she also soothes us with a ray of hope, a belief in the essential goodness of humanity. To quote from her poem “Game of Numbers”:

 

So the gaming sprints through time and space

Yet humanity lone belongs to another race

A wholesome knit of goodness breed

     As we reap the verdure from that seed---

 

It is impossible to do justice to this vast patchwork quilt of Banerjee’s poetry in this short piece. All I can say in closing is that the diligent reader will reap much verdure from this poetic seed.

***

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Setu, July 2024