STRUCK IN A UNIQUE WAY WHILE READING THE FLAME

Bhaskar Roy Barman

While browsing through Dr Stephen Gill’s  152-page poetry book, The Flame, I am stuck in a unique way.   Dr Gill lashes at the ‘maniac messiahs’ who love going on rampage, destroying peace and harmony on their way to gain their own selfish ends. These religious fanatics are out to bedevil human relation without delving deep into what religion means. They commit atrocities in the name of religion.

As I am reading the poetry book, I get the impression that the poet personifies the flame that dwells in every peace-loving man and woman and invokes it to manifest itself as a harmonizer, a harbinger of peace, as in the following opening lines of this long poem:

You are the imperishable harmony
 that reaps unparalleled prosperity. (P. 32)

This book deserves to be read by  poetry-loving people, because it gives a message about global peace in an artistic way.

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Dr. Bhaskar Roy Barman, author of Gateway to Heaven ( a novel)

and other books, is president of World Literature Society.