---R. P. Sinha
What
is eligible poetry?
The
issue has been deliberated vicariously without an eventual verdict. The
idiosyncratic irresolution sets the arts apart from the certitudes of dry,
objective science, by inviting uncertainties and inferable leaps of individual,
autonomous imagination. Poetry is a ritual, a lingual hypothesis in the
religion of emotions, a fluid coding and decoding of grief and desire, passion
and fervour, an afterlife of impressions. Frost’s belief is that it is the
detritus of translation, which it is indeed, for it requires the skill of an
impersonator for appropriating identities and sentiments, as well as an ear and
a pen for euphony.
R.
K. Singh possesses these foundational capabilities in plenty, has been writing
poetry for more than three decades and is well-known the world over for his
cryptic and acute, as well as diffuse and protean poetic comments on the real
and the surreal. His choice of technique and form is heterogeneous, from free
verse to haiku and tanka, from a poetry of radical demurrals to doctrinal
consent. His unconventional cache of metaphors and symbols resurrects a
synoptic tedium of a disillusioned generation.
If
I had to tag the two recent collections of R. K. Singh, Against the Waves:
Selected Poems (Authors Press, 2021) and Knocking Vistas and
Other Poems (Authors Press, 2024), in a terse phrase, I would use an
Eliotian effusion, “bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit.” (Four Quartets 4:
Little Gidding, Eliot) Singh’s poems function on an amorphic cerebral
plane of the abstract, intriguing and teasing, daring and adventurous, with a
stubborn predilection for bucking out of the paddock.
The
themes in the two collections hover along four fundamental regrets–collapsing
libido, inadequacy of religions, poignant self-pity and shape-shifting of
ecumenical values. Alongside, one can see several incremental motifs of
politics, individual and collective suffering, the aftershock of the Covid
outbreak, etc. The aggregate impression is that this poetry manifests a
testament of a soul tackling the zip locks of physical and mental containment.
The
characteristics are evident as the reader negotiates the enticing maze of the
first volume, Against the Waves, which extends into serious reflections
on the nature of the passage of time, as well as its influence on identity, and
relationships, unified by the transformative power of extraordinary poetry. The
intersection of thought and emotion is visible prominently in each of the poems
in the volume, accentuating Singh’s faculty for cathartic purges by means of
powerful self-expression.
Many
of the poems in Against the Waves are about the devastating impact of
Covid when it loomed into a pandemic, upsetting journeys, sojourns, and
emotional mainstays. Singh’s poetic statements surge from his personal
realization of the deficits in human contentment. Poems like ‘Test’ and ‘Third
Wave’ communicate the ferocity of devastation that the disease escalated,
“virus more mighty / thank God in politics” (Test), and “no burial, no third
day / total lockdown, here and there.” (Against the Waves, Third Wave, 37)
Religion
is an abscess and disillusionment not only in this volume but also in the
succeeding one. Be it ‘Mahakaal’, ‘Homa’ or ‘Anointment’, a singularity fuses
them together. Following the humanistic epodic tradition, Singh appears to
deliberate on the inadequacy of religion and God ostensibly but deep down, each
of these poems takes off to the domain of collateral inferences– sickness,
corruption and real life practicalities, e.g. when priests go on strike and
lock the temple, “trustees warn / sacking them if not / returned next morning.”
(Against the Waves, Strike, 69)
Singh
being a sentient poet, echoes of contemporary politics resound periodically in
his verses written in this period, mirroring political polarization on self-fed
rubrics:
They don’t hear
the silent screams of
millions
tired of misfortune
play games of convenience
innocent voters
sordid life–
nation’s destiny
heaven-fed (Against the Waves, Post-Election,
15)
Literature
often systematizes social values into well-defined categories, however, it also
covers the gray areas, where good and evil interchange. It is not only the good
but also the evil that fosters the best plots in the world. It has an ascendant
value in the present times. George Battaille appropriately argues that
“...literature is not innocent” (Literature and Evil, 84). The prescript
applies to poetry too. Singh’s notion of evil in the Indian political system
lays bare the narratives concocted by the political parties for wresting
victory, “they invent new lies with periodical distractions”. (Against the
Waves, Weird Chains, 22)
The
crossway between life and intellectuality is reflected from the very first
creation in the other anthology, Knocking Vistas and Other Poems. The
title derives from the two longish poems at the end of the volume–one is a
five-liner bender while the other one is a three-liner sequence. The
three-liners are in effect a launch from the haiku Singh has been producing
prolifically. A haiku is a sort of poetic abbreviation, summarizing human
experience through condensed expression and a terse defining in the third line.
The spirit bolsters Singh’s “Knocking Vistas” I and II:
rioting flames
witches dance in a cave–
strawberry moon. (Knocking Vistas,
Three-Liners, 72)
The
paradox of Singh’s three-liners is that they are open-ended despite the
conclusive rounding-off that a haiku usually demands in the last line. Such
hefty momentum wrenches open a portal of myriad prospects of vision as one
hikes through the interconnected, disparate conclusions, in the units stringing
together this extended poem.
The
tanka, a Japanese verse form like the haiku, is a five-line poem. Once again,
like the haiku, it is dependent on a system of syllables. The pure tanka
consists of two syllable patterns. Similar to the sonnet, the second syllable
pattern inverts what has been articulated in the first pattern. However, with
the passage of time, any five-liner poem is now dubbed a tanka. Singh pursues
the liberal scheme.
The
five-line stanzas in the other poem by the same title each conjure a narrative
birthing from a limber observation of the moments of animated world-weariness,
for example:
Manikarnika:
he collects warm ashes
searching gold to live
by country liquor or bread
for starving wife and children (Knocking
Vistas, Five-Liners, 64)
The
reader, if familiar with the macabre spectacles at the cremation ghats of
Varanasi, will forthwith descry the options of livelihood and profit a
cremation offers to the folks engaged in the profession of corpse burning.
Morbid scenes recur in the volume with a duality of discovery–external world
determining the sentiment, and lexical preference. The imagist spirit lives on
in the succeeding stanzas with legitimate ferocity.
The
two anthologies surface as a reassessment of the self, often dangling on the
edge of the confessional. They are a voluntary disclosure of angst and
debilities, a concomitant rebuttal of a world once opulent to the poet,
justifying the uniqueness of the imagery. The language is beautifully
evocative, accentuating the bittersweet encounters of growing old and waning
physical vitality. The twin volumes are a subtext of core personal values
turning sour. Each of the verses is a nuance in itself, calibrating Singh’s
pivotal thoughts, fears and desires, as in ‘On His Suggestion to Write a
Memoir’, “how much should I strip / in public / poems already say / too much to
digest.” (Knocking Vistas, 40)
An
outstanding feature of the poetry in the two volumes is a candid portrayal of
sexuality. It challenges ageist stereotypes–a kind of reclaim over one’s body
and desires. The arch connecting tender reminiscences, youthful passions and
intimacy in old age celebrates the enduring vitality of sexuality, as opposed
to motet celibacy:
I love Sharon Old’s spark
her vision of Pope’s member
erect in sleep for his God (Knocking Vistas,
Love, 31)
Likewise,
“Melting Elements”, ‘a long experimental poem’ in Singh’s subtitle, is an
exploration of physicality and human relations. It moves on the bearings of
experiments in carnality and an arcane permutation of words:
adventure
between the thighs–
tailored deal (Knocking Vistas, 43)
Carnality,
as a word, does require certain clarifications in the poetic sense because it
differs categorically from the religious one. The religious connotation of
carnality is that it satisfies the flesh but starves the soul, however, in
Singh’s poetry, the connection between flesh and spirituality is always
pertinent, sublimating in the apparel of soft romance. The grace of his verse
is that his expression may sound vulgar if considered in isolation but when
weighed in the context of the entire poem, it becomes a sentiment universally
satisfying:
her beauty
smells the soil that sings
grace in look:
I whisper my heart and chase
the glow her shadow spreads (Knocking Vistas,
Melting Elements, 43)
The
comprehensive quality of Singh’s poetry is difficult to capture in a single
critical estimation–there are so many facets of life he
touches–disillusionment, old age, social suffering, et al, besides the
themes mentioned earlier. From conclusive hallmarks of imagination to poignant
reflections on intimacy in old age, the collections celebrate the enduring
vitality of human tenacity. The poet grapples with the inevitability of aging
with a modicum of resentment, confronting mortality with the binary of acceptance
as well as defiance. Through vivid imagery and expressive language, the poems
capture the fleeting nature of life and the misgivings of growing old, weaving
a tapestry of experiences that resonates with readers of all ages. The collections
stand as luminous beacons in the landscape of contemporary poetry, putting
Singh on the pedestal of the foremost poets in the current times.
Works
cited
Author-Bio: Dr R.P. Sinha is the Head, Dept. of English, Annada College, Hazaribag (Jharkhand), India
