QUOTES FROM MY PREFACES AND INTERVIEWS
ON THE ART OF POETRY WRITING
*I believe that the language of poetry is more compact,
energetic, of greater intensity
and emotional depth than the language of prose is and it has no
room for clichés and unnecessary words. Poetry is
a villa of glorious shape where every
brick that is chiselled in a
unique way belongs to its exact spot.
Like other arts, poetry needs revisions for perfection and there is more than one way
to do that. Poets are professional workers who keep polishing the tools
of their trade.
The tools of an artist
keep changing while zigzagging down a labyrinth of experiences. When it is said that artists are born with talent, this implies to me that they have a natural aptitude for particular
skills. These aptitudes or talents are
rough diamonds to be chiselled and polished to become hard, bright,
precious and flawless gems. Writing is a
profession and the skills of every profession need to be improved
with hard work, patience and study. Constant revisions were a way of life of the masters, including Dylan Thomas,
Nobel Laureate W.B. Yeats and a
host of other poets. Artists strive to
touch the highest pinnacle of
perfection, but perfection is confined to Divine Being Who is the Creator of the inheritors of His spark of
creativity. Prominence is the result of years of labour in
obscurity to find a market and an audience.
There
is no doubt
that excellent poems have been written
also in the first sitting, even under the extreme of haste. As a rule, revisions produce more satisfying results. …
For
their creations,
poets use words as rocks. History has
proved it again and over again that words are the atoms of the nitroglycerin which are suffused with energy. The first poet was God
who created the universe with His words. God created humans in His own image.
In other words, human is also creative. At the end of every creation, He said
it is beautiful. The creation of a true artist is also beauty.
To
me every creation is beautiful. Poetry is beauty. The other forms of beauty are
also poetic, including dance, painting, fiction and all that one can name. But
there is no beauty in terrorism and the violation of human rights…
Poetry
is to present
my vision and my concerns and to conceive
peace in a peaceful way. The
compelling influence for my crusade is the peace that is beauty-- the peace
that is creative-- the peace that makes life meaningful. I attempt to illustrate that peace
in its myriad form on the rocks of my
words. These rocks shout that Lazrus buried under
them longs for life.
Poetry
is an art and I do not try to break rules of the art for the sake of the
propagation of my views. I am a votary of
beauty and beauty is peace. I use
poetry also to escape. I feel relieved when I clean
the glasses of the self to glimpse a
panoramic view of a new island.
I am at my best when my fingers tingle and my arms begin to cry. That is the time when I feel happy that I am able
to communicate better with the innerself and give
birth to my thoughts and feelings.I call this process a type of spiritual
liberation.
I
breathe in the fortress
of poetry under the roof
of security. Within its genial walls I strengthen the feathers of my pen around the fire of beauty while the demons
of daily life surround its entrance of
sacredness. I have stopped drinking
because of my
muse. I have learnt to coexist with the
pangs of the invisible enemies of tension.
Nightmares still bother me but poetry opens a gate to calmness from the neurotic world that is full of theatrical despair. Poetry opens a window to
breathe the mystical power of catharsis that purifies my emotions about the
mirage of the images of my early life.
(Excerpts from author’s
preface to Songs Before Shrine by Stephen Gill )
*A poet cannot live in an ivory tower
forever. If today Shakespeare is alive, it is also because he has produced in
his plays social, political, economic, moral and scientific ideas of his times.
He has proved that a literature which does not reflect the spirits of the time
cannot be great and of lasting nature. Even in Paradise Lost, which is timeless, John Milton expresses the moral
controversies of the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, which plagued the
time and sent a British king to gallows.
(Excerpts from “Writers and World Peace” an
article by Stephen Gill)
*I do not belong to any school
or era of poetry. My poetry
is the psalm of my soul. To me, a poet is a discoverer of unknown
continents through the voyage of the self. A poet is also a priest who through
the mantra of poetry reaches the god within.
(From Stephen Gill’s
interview with Dr. Sarangi, published in The Atlantic
Literary Review, July-Sept.2004)
*A
poet should never be tired
of revisions. A time comes when a poem would tell when
to stop. Sometimes poets have to stop revisions, because they get tired of what leads them nowhere, even knowing that the poem
needs extra work. In such situations, I put my poem aside to take it up some
other day unexpectedly. This procedure works in most cases with most poets.
Often poets will know themselves if a poem needs further work. It is like
knowing when the stomach is full.
Another way is to consult an editor. Everyone needs an editor, even
editors do.
There is a myth that poetry strikes a poet like a flash, or it is a divine bolt.
For a serious poet, it may be bolt and divine, but mostly it is cooking. I believe
there is beauty everywhere. That is what the Bible says in its story on the origin of the
universe. After every creation, God said beautiful. There is beauty in every
object and so is poetry. Beauty is poetry and poetry is beauty. But everyone does not have the abilities to
bring out gracefully the god
within. It is a poet who gives that god a shape with the beauty of the
language. Language is a
media between an object
and poet that gives life, as God
did when he created the universe with his words. What is important in a poem is the
arrangement of words. This is an intellectual exercise that needs dipping into
the amazing world
of words. These efforts need the proper knowledge of the tools.
Poets are painters who use words, instead of colours,
or they are
dancers, who use lyrics instead of using the movements of their hands, legs and
facial expressions. In addition to the
arrangement of words, the most important feature of a poem is economy of
expression.
Poetry is an unusual experience that shakes a poet thoroughly. A poem is by a human for
humans about a deep inner experience that is symbolized through a language.
To describe or illustrate, poets need tools and the struggle to master the use
of the tools is perspiration. Through images and the arrangement of words and
other tools, poets convey their experiences to their readers. Poetry is not
only to convey that experience to readers, it is also to convey it in a
beautiful way and that beautiful way should also be something like a new and delicious
dish. That is where perspiration gets involved.
(From my preface to the Flame)
*A good poem will touch my soul, and a poem will touch my soul if it follows the
rules of craftsmanship that includes the use of imagery, language, and fresh
phrases. Fat and over-used expressions
are the pesticides that irritate me. A good poem is mostly bones and muscles.
(From “Stephen Gill with AN Choudhary”,
interview published in Kohinoor (
*:Poetry
is a spiritual and psychic experience. To give shape to this experience, poets need
special knowledge in order to use images, tone, economy of words and other
techniques. To weave a rainbow of beauty poets select and adjust words in
different combinations.
Poetry is
neither “emotions recollected in tranquility,” nor is it “turning loose of
emotions.” Poetry is experience that can happen any time with or without
reason. One element that is common in both definitions, and in most others, is
the presence of emotions. I will call these emotions airy beings. With their
tools poets catch the airy beings in the net of their words. It is like
catching fish in a sea. Painters catch them in the net of their colours with the hands of their brushes. Dancers catch them
in the net of the movements with their hands, eyes, brows and other body parts.
These are different techniques that do the same work.
Poets
train themselves to catch airy beings. I call these airy beings the robins of
my art in my preface to The Flame. There I say that these robins are not
meant to be caged. They are the birds of freedom. They enjoy their freedom when
poets send them to publications or present them in a book for the enjoyment of
the reader.
In my poem
“Oars”, I call them “naked creatures of waves.” A poet “clothes them with
images / stitched with words” (p.36, Songs
Before Shrine). Poets are wordsmiths, who have
knowledge and education about the tools that are used to clothe these airy
beings in a graceful way. This is an art. A person may be born with a
propensity to be a poet, but that is not enough. Propensity or talent is like a raw diamond
that has to be chiselled and polished into a
beautiful form. In order to acquire the knowledge of chiseling and polishing a
poet needs work that I call perspiration. To me poetry is seventy-five percent
perspiration and twenty-five percent inspiration or talent. Perspiration needs
struggle to know how to use the tools of a poet effectively.
(From “Stephen
Gill On His Writing And Diaspora”: an interview with
Dr.
Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal, Contemporary Vibes,
vol.4, No. 14, Jan-March 09)
*Poetry is a
process of exploration. At the same time, poetry is suffering as is the suffering of a
mother when she gives birth to a child, or a candle that burns itself to spread
light around. I enjoy writing poetry and enjoy also sharing it with others.”
(From the interview appeared in the book of Dr. Sudhir
Arora, title The Poetic Corpus of Stephen
Gill: An Evaluation)
*To bring out something that is within is
abstract. It is
in the form of ideas, experiences and notions. I call them the
god within. To be able to paint a copy of this god within, an artist needs
skills. A poet uses his imagination and the skills of the language to use in
different ways to paint the god within.
Language is the product of the intellect that helps to
paint the
intangible tangibly, using the tool of
comparison buttressed by symbols. In a way, every word that we use is a symbol.
Take the case of water. The word water is not the liquid we need to quench our
thirst. It is a symbol. No matter how hard we try, the word water cannot quench
our thirst.
When a poet says that “my love is a red, red rose” he is trying to compare
two things. This symbol or metaphor cannot stand for the actual object of
beauty. The same can
be applied to the case of a potter. The actual pot is within the potter, who
tries to give it a
shape. The potter may try
different ways to copy what is within. It depends on his education, training,
dedication and several other factors to make the resemblance closer. Still the
copy bears only a resemblance of the exact object.
It is a painful process of trials and errors for a
poet to paint
indelible pictures hung within the walls of the poet’s blood. The process of this
painting bears similarities with Carl Gustav Jung’s theory of the individuation process
that is the integration between the conscious and unconscious features of the
inner self. The story does not end here.
A poet constantly faces the demons of dry spells and depression
because of his or her limitations to bring out what is within. It is a painful reality of a poet’s life.
Just the awareness of the survival of this god within the blood is not enough. As a
skillful fisher, a dedicated poet is constantly searching for spots, ways and tools to
ensnare the creatures of the water.
The god within, abstract, can manifest itself through
unconscious means of dreams, visions, hallucinations and so on. On the other
hand, the means of a poet are deliberate to form a dialogue with the within.
Formation of this dialogue or the mastering of the tools is painful—a hard struggle even to catch glimpses of this reality. This painting is a copy because it is
manifested through symbols-- conscious means of a poet. To master and try these
conscious means are painful.
These means become more painful when a dedicated poet paints in an individual way. His writing is tight
without the use of cliché. The process
causes several wrong
turns before finding the right one. It is often a frustrating process. It needs
extraordinary patience, deep thinking, wider studies and more explorations. I
have written about this sweating in search for fresh symbols in my prefaces of
the collections of my poems.
It
becomes more painful when
an artist tries to find time to paint while facing the demons of daily life.
Turning ones back to the pleasures is itself painful. It requires sacrifices,
adjustments and a total unshaken dedication that becomes an obsession even at a
young age when the worldly pleasure are difficult to keep at a distance.
Struggle and suffering are painful.
Poetry needs dedication and dedication is a
preoccupation that becomes an obsession and obsessions cause intense emotional
and economic loss and where there is loss there is pain and suffering. This painful process of a dedicated poet is
like the painful process of a mother. A poet gives birth to poems that are full
of life. I call them robins. When these robins are properly fed and nourished,
their feathers become stronger to be able to fly independently in the
borderless skies of freedom and beauty. This creation is an incarnation of the
god within. Just giving birth is not
enough. To take care of them and let them grow to be independent is also
painful.
There is pain in longing or desire as Buddha has said.
Suffering and desire go together. One way to get rid of the suffering is to get
rid of desire. A dedicated
being will not let the desire go away because that desire is his
or her obsession. When a poet appears to be doing nothing he is still involved
with his desire. When Gautama Buddha sat under a tree for days and nights without
eating and drinking, he was enlightened. He came to know that desire is
responsible for suffering.
In another story, a Zen master was walking with his
disciples along a river. A young disciple began to pester him with a question
that was how to be enlightened. At one point the master grabbed the young
disciple and held him under the water. The disciple began to throw his hands
and legs in desperation to save himself. But the
master held him under the water for a while. The disciple tried to free
himself, but could not. When he felt that he was about to be drowned and die,
the Zen master let him go. He came to the surface and began to breathe.
The master asked him about the thoughts he had when he
was under the water. He said that first he had many. They disappeared at once
when he was about to be drowned. He had only one longing at that time and that was for air. The master
replied that was his enlightenment.
I will call this enlightenment a passion or complete
dedication or obsession. Obsession is the extreme of desire. When someone
desires something with intensity, that desire become a
passion that causes suffering. When the passion becomes the goal of a poet, there is
suffering or pains and in those pains
there is liberation and birth.
Passion is from the Greek word “pascho”
that means to suffer. The Latin word “passio” refers
to Christ’s mortal suffering. For me poetry
is a passion and passion is an extreme kind of attachment and attachment is
suffering.
When a poet is hit with the bug of this passion, his or her suffering changes
into the emotions of self-satisfaction
in that attainment. To paint the god within in one form or another needs
energy and energy is never destroyed. It transforms. It assumes the shape of a
poem and the poem is self-satisfaction, also called liberation or joy or peace.
A deep attachment or obsession itself is responsible
for pains. Dedicated poets are attached to their creative process. They are as drowning
individuals who long for air. As long as such poets are drowned in the waters of creativity,
they suffer, longing for the oxygen to complete the process. There is joy for
them in hope and in the anticipation of completion. That joy provides energy to
move forward to finish their
works. It is like the suffering of the birthing of a new life.
When someone asked Buddha after his enlightenment what
he gained from it, he said he instead lost. He lost his ignorance and dreams
for the sake of enlightenment that gave him bliss. There is also pain in physical exercise, but
also joy. In the same way there is joy in the creative process while going through
the pains of the exercise of the creative process to give birth to a being that
is poetry.
(from the interview with United
Minds for Peace).
* NKA: Wordsworth
defined poetry as spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Whereas T.S.Eliot went against the emotions and exclaimed: "Poetry
is not a turning loose of emotions, but an escape from emotions".
What is the best way? Should a poet be subjective or objective? Or, should
there be a perfect balance between the two? Which path do you prefer in your
poetry? Please communicate.
SG: Poetry is a spiritual and psychic
experience. To give shape to this
experience, poets need special knowledge in order to use images, tone, economy
of words and other techniques. To weave a rainbow of beauty poets select and
adjust words in different combinations.
Poetry is neither “emotions recollected in
tranquility,” nor is it “turning loose of emotions.” Poetry is experience that
can happen any time with or without reason. One element that is common in both
definitions, and in most others, is the presence of emotions. I will call these
emotions airy beings. With their tools poets catch the airy beings in the net
of their words. It is like catching fish in a sea. Painters catch them in the
net of their colours with the hands of their brushes.
Dancers catch them in the net of the movements with their hands, eyes, brows
and other body parts. These are different techniques that do the same work.
Poets train
themselves to catch airy beings. I call these airy beings the robins of my art
in my preface to The Flame. There I say that these robins are not
meant to be caged. They are the birds of freedom. They enjoy their freedom when
poets send them to publications or present them in a book for the enjoyment of
the reader.
In my poem
“Oars”, I call them “naked creatures of waves.” A poet “clothes them with
images / stitched with words” (p.36, Songs
Before Shrine). Poets are wordsmiths, who have
knowledge and education about the tools that are used to clothe these airy
beings in a graceful way. This is an art. A person may be born with a
propensity to be a poet, but that is not enough. Propensity or talent is like a raw diamond
that has to be chiselled and polished into a
beautiful form. In order to acquire the knowledge of chiselling
and polishing a poet needs work that I call perspiration. To me poetry is
seventy-five percent perspiration and twenty-five percent inspiration or
talent. Perspiration needs struggle to know how to use the tools of a poet
effectively.
NKA: What are the major themes
of your poetry?
SG: The major theme of my
poetry is peace. Peace is the absence of war or fear of war and bloodshed. My
poems about peace are about the definition of peace, in favour
of harmony, against war and bloodshed, and to condemn terrorism. I believe that
peace is the legitimate child of peaceful means. I deal with subjects such as
war, bloodshed, harmony, human rights, and democracy. Some poems about peace from my collection Shrine include “Peace of Mind”, “To a
Dove”, “Flight of a Dove”, “My House of Peace”, and “My Dove”. From Songs Before Shrine, I would
like to include “Peace” , “Dove of Peace,” “My Name is Peace”, “Seeking the
Dove of Peace”, “Harmony and Peace”, “Evening of Harmony”, “Rays of Harmony”,
“When”, “Harmony”, “Muse of Peace”, “Where are They”, “Prince of Peace,” and
“Domain of Peace”. These poems are directly related to my major theme. The
poems that condemn terrorism include “Religious Fanaticism” and “Terrorists”
from Shrine. My long poem, The Flame, that is of 152 pages and divided
into sixty two cantos, is about terrorism and peace. In addition to these
poems, there are references to terrorism in other poems.
I have written
and published poems also in Urdu and Punjabi against terrorism. I have a number
of poems on other social concerns, including AIDS, children and
discriminations. Notable poems to condemn war include “Talking of Peace,” “War Fever”, “Arms
Trader”, “Hounds of War”, “My Beliefs,”
and “Last Dance” from Shrine. “If There Be a Third World War”, “A
Question”, “To WarMongers”, “War is Fraud’, “About
War” are a few notable poems from Songs Before Shrine.
There is a
complete section to condemn war in Flashes,
a collection of my haiku. In addition, I have edited two anthologies of
poems, titled Anti-War Poems, volume
one and volume two. Volume one was released in 1984. It has one hundred and
twenty contributors from seven nations. Volume Two was released in 1986. It has
over one hundred poets from seventeen nations. In both the anthologies, poets
condemn war.
We are
breathing in an exceedingly perilous atmosphere that is deteriorating at an
alarming speed. One single factor that is responsible for this impending peril
is nuclear warfare, hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles to
destroy us all. Scientists so far have not been able to discover any other
civilization anywhere else in the universe. If by any chance the nuclear giant
is out, even this single civilization of ours will be wiped out, leaving the
sun, the moon and the stars to appear and disappear without anyone being to
enjoy their sight. It has taken centuries to build our civilization and it will
take minutes to annihilate the same. Obviously, it would be an inexpressible
tragedy.
The poems of
antiwar anthologies are related directly to war and peace. In addition to these
poems, there are several more that have references to war and bloodshed. I have
also written several poems condemning war and bloodshed in Urdu and Punjabi
languages.
I have also
tackled the problem of war and peace in my prose. There are several articles to
condemn war and bloodshed. I have given
talks and interviews on radio and television.
Some of these interviews have been collected in a DVD, titled Interviews of Stephen Gill.
Writers and
poets are involved with every aspect of life, including news media, and
creative arts. The heart is the seat for peace. If the heart is at peace, the
world around can also be impacted with the radiance of peace emitted by eyes,
tongue and actions. .
Poets are
involved with many aspects of life, like writing lyrics for songs and speeches
for politicians and business executives. Lorca and
Byron gave their lives for the cause of liberation. Among the written
documents, the Vedas, the Bible, and the Koran have a great impact on the minds of people. Lately, Pentagon
papers concerning the Vietnam War have changed the thinking of several
Americans, and a book titled Uncle Tom’s
Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stow was partly responsible for the liberation of
the slaves in the
There are
different aspects of peace, including terrorism, human rights, bloodshed, and
poverty. I deal with them in an art form. This art form is as important to me
as is the theme. To write a good poem on peace, I concentrate deeply to select
the right words and tone, and to weed out excessive fat.
Writing is
also therapeutic to me. In order to give light, a candle burns itself. That is
what a poet does. I write to disseminate my message in an art form. This is a
process of burning oneself or going through the pains of a pregnant mother.
A poem should
not be predictable, and it should not be constructed on the trodden path. In
other words, the emotions should be caught in the meshes of a style that is
devoid of emotional clichés and redundancies. The word clichés refers to
expressions that have been used excessively and become stale. In other words, a
cliché is an idea, a metaphor or an expression that has lost its freshness
because it has been used frequently. Such expressions are often heard and read
and a poet is likely to lose admirers.
I try to use
fresh language and images; I am cautious to use allusions that are hackneyed.
Trite expressions are often used in Indian English Literature, such as Ram Rajya, apple’s eyes,
at a stone throw, a faithful friend, Mother Nature, leave no stone
unturned, wear and tear , axe to grind,
nip in the bud and many more. These are worn out phrases. Sometimes, original expressions may be
obscure to the reader and may prove enigmatic.
It is sometimes baffling for me to choose between a private image that
is original and trite expressions that are over familiar. However, there are
times when it becomes important to use a cliché for brevity or clarity. Such
incidents may be rare. It is not easy to put emotions into words and images
that are imaginative and inventive. All these requirements need revisions.
I also pay a
special attention to tone. Tone is the voice of a speaker that tells if the
speaker is angry, preachy, scornful, and so on. Just a simple sentence "I
need you," may have different meaning to different listeners, depending on
the tone of the voice and if the speaker has a smile or any other expression on
his voice. The tone can be understood but difficult to interpret. It can be
soft, loud, whispering and even scornful.
Tone is the
prevailing spirit, or the moral attitude, of the poet towards his reader. A
poet conveys the tone in his poems through words and expressions. It is
difficult to express it in a poem. In order to convey the right tone, a poet
needs revision to select the right expressions.
Poems that are
preachy are not admired much. One can be preachy without being obvious. If I
have to preach something, I use prose. Poetry is an aesthetic art and I want to
keep it that way. I use peace as a subject matter and toil to handle it as a
piece of art. Art is beauty. When I read a poem, I look for aesthetic
qualities, not for information and knowledge. For knowledge or information, I
will read books in prose. This is what readers expect. Therefore I avoid being
preachy in my poetry. I believe that to achieve peace, the best means are the
peaceful means. If I have to preach, I will use the media of prose, where I can
use logic and reasoning to get my message across.
Art is a way
of expression that can assume the shape of visual, performing or literary art.
All these arts express culture that can be personal or collective. Expression
is life-breath — the palpitation of a nation or an individual. Poetry is an art
of expression and expression differs as does the appearance of
individuals.
When a person
perceives an object—beautiful or ugly—it produces a reaction or feelings. Those
feelings, reactions or sentiments are formless. A poet expresses those formless
objects in a sensible form. One can use a cliché that is easy and needs no
effort, but there is no inventiveness in its use. One can find new ways and
modes to express the object. That needs
real effort. That is called individual approach—a distinctive element—fresh
memorable piece of art. Such a treatment needs intellectual exercise. A poet has to manage an unmanageable horse of
emotions that needs skills, guidance and control to be able to achieve smooth
efficient operation of a poem. In order to achieve this object, a poet needs
time to work in different ways to bring those feelings out. In other words, it
needs revisions. Let me also emphasize that poetry is as demanding as any art is. It demands
devotion, skill and professionalism.
NKA: You have authored a haiku
collection entitled Flashes. What are
your views about this type of poetry?
SG: I became interested in haiku in
1988, when I began to study poets from the point of their form and style. Some
of them had been haiku writers. Haiku enamoured me as
I went deeper in its study, savouring its delightful
simple presence though its simplicity is deceptive.
By its very nature a
haiku is an unfinished poem, written in telegraphic language. A traditional
haiku is of three lines, and has definite syllables of five, seven and five
respectively. It also suggests a season. All that I can say is that haiku is
mostly the bones of an experience or revelation.
Haiku was born in
Because of its brevity, a haiku can be jot down in short intervals.
Moreover, haiku poets do not have to be tied to set rules. They can write on
highly unusual as well as on ordinary aspects of life. A haiku does not have to
be about special moments. What can be
more joyful than to be able to find beauty in everything around without waiting
for something rare to happen. This element turns haiku into daily bread,
not a feast to be enjoyed on specific occasions. For the writers of haiku, the
well of imagination never goes dry. They do not have to go to a library in
search of material, nor do they have to shut themselves in their rooms to
explore the chambers of their minds. This is because the material is right in
front of them, even when they look into the mirror. To illustrate how easy it
is to catch these ideas from daily life, I will quote my two haiku:
Dishes clutter the
table
light smiles from above
house is silent (Stephen Gill)
The above three lines sketch an ordinary
scene from ordinary life. This scene from a kitchen suggests a family
get-together, when all the guests have gone, leaving the dishes on the table to
be picked up for washing. It is late evening, suggested by a light, and the
silence indicates that the hosts have gone to bed because they may be tired.
They may do the dishes the next day. Here is another haiku of mine:
Without you
I am a leafless tree
love is the sap (Stephen Gill)
For haiku writers material is
everywhere. They find material even in the most mundane situations. To them style is a dress as it is for humans.
A poet may say that he or she has no problem finding material; it is the choice
of words or diction they have to struggle with. For haiku poets such
distinctions do not exist. They use ordinary language to present their ordinary
life. Many haiku poems appear primarily prosaic, like Basho's
diaries.
Several English haiku
writers have used rhyme successfully, but its use is not essential. Over the
years, a vast body of haiku has been produced, and still is being produced, in
which rhyme has been used rarely. This choice makes the job of haiku poets easier.
Haiku has been free
enough to adjust itself to the needs of poets of every succeeding age under
different circumstances. For instance, in
Haiku entices the poets
who dislike original limitations, particularly concerning the use of syllabic
versification, reference to season and terse language. Temperamentally, I
cannot develop a love for something that is chained. I like to be free like nature itself. That may be why the wind and dove in various
shapes appear in my poetry. Moreover, I do not perceive much creativity in work
in which a poet has to struggle to conform to the established norms. Haiku
offers freedom to freedom-loving poets. For them, there are vast possibilities
for adopting new techniques.
I am not among those
poets who finish off several pieces in a single sitting. Rather I am a slow but steady producer. My first draft is a diamond in a rough shape.
I polish and chisel a practice that is against the teachings of Basho.
Bashu Matsuo, the first great master of
haiku, was born in
Distractions do not
pose serious problems for haiku poets, though all writers hate them no matter
how deeply they are in love with writing. Interruptions are unable to irritate
haiku poets because they only need a few minutes to jot down three lines,
anywhere, any time. The novelists and poets of other genres may envy haiku
writers for this very reason. Even if writers inform the other members of their
families not to interrupt them at certain hours, the family may not know what
this means because distraction or interruption has different connotations for
different people. When a writer goes to the washroom or to the kitchen for a
glass of water, the spouse and children may think that the writer is now open
for conversation. This sort of problem does not bother a haiku writer.
One way for a poet to
make the best possible use of any available time is to get hold of a pocket-
sized tape recorder. Inspiration comes as a flash, a revelation. A poet should
put it into
words immediately. Otherwise, it will fade or evaporate sooner than water does
in a tropical country. Such flashes happen seldom. They seem to be a result of
the poet's unconscious acts. Priceless gems, which are the works of this
unconscious mind, may be lost by procrastination. I have lost many gems. In my long drives, I keep a tape recorder
within reach to pick up for recording. It is small enough to fit in any coat
pocket, and is easy to operate, without even looking at it. Anything recorded
can be revised and polished later. What can be more fun than catching daily
scenes and random thoughts in three lines. It is a
different matter if a poet happens to be too lazy to pick up a note-book and a
pen. If this seems to be a problem, I would advise such a poet to keep a mini
tape recorder all the time in his or her pocket. If they cannot even do this,
then, I would ask them to look within, to know if they are eligible suitors for
the muse. Maybe, they will do better as plumbers, or at the grocery store, than
as priests in the temple of haiku.
Everyone likes short
cuts, no matter where he or she goes. So do writers, to save time. Fortunately,
haiku poets do not need these short cuts. Haiku itself is a short cut to
writing full poems of several lines. Haiku is one of the oldest forms of poetry
and therefore it has had a long time to mature, going through several stages of
experimentation not only in
To study my views about
haiku further and from another angle, I would suggest reading my introduction
to Flashes, a collection of my
haiku. This introduction is also on my
web site: www.stephengill.ca
(From the interview with Dr. Nilanshu
Agarwal)
*I write about peace and peace-related subjects. To convey my
message in poetry, I have drafted some rules. I call my poems robins, as I have
mentioned somewhere also. I prepare food for them with the following four
truths. My four basic truths are like the four hands of the Indian mythological
goddess Sarswati who is considered consort of Brahma, the
god of creation. These four basic truths on which the theory of my poetry is based can also be
called the four sisters of my creation.
Listed below, I
have discussed them in different
forms in my prefaces:
(1) Spirit is the first truth. Spirit is an immaterial force within a human
that gives life to the body. One can call it dedication or passion or an
obsession for writing. It includes editing to give life to my poetry. Editing
is the outcome of passion or obsession.
I test my poetry in the furnace of
editing to get rid of anything that is dross.
As a poet
I try not to be tired of editing to take
out extra and redundant words, though I do it in prose also to a lesser
extent.
While
editing, I try
to find out if there was a clear reason for writing that piece. In other words,
there should be one main message or theme in the piece. A lack of clarity about the
theme or message shows that the poet is not clear in the mind. I believe that a
poem should revolve around one idea at a time.
All
these attempts are to make the spirit more energetic.
(2) The second basic truth is imagery because it is
the highest form of metaphor. It is a
tool that helps
a poet to represent the god within.
(3) The third basic truth helps me to get rid of
anything that is stale. I am an enemy of overused expressions
that have lost their freshness. It is
artistic to use an expression or imagery for the first time, but its subsequent
use shows the laziness and ignorance of the poet.
(4) The function of the fourth basic truth is to
differentiate poetry from prose. A poem should be reasonably more
tight and compact than the prose. I take out unnecessary, redundant
words and details. I believe that economy of expression is more important in a
poem than in prose because it lends grace.
To give birth to something is liberation from
suffering. Before the birth takes place there is desire or longing to give
birth. This extreme of desire is suffering. To get rid of this desire is to
give birth and this is liberation. It is an experience of joy. I have discussed
it in detail elsewhere.
(From
the interview with United Minds for Peace)
*QUESTION: Does your poem the ‘Flame’ bear
some autobiographical suggestions?
A. Artists
combine personal experiences with the experiences of others and also something
from the imagination,
adding and deleting, to get across the message. In this struggle
nothing remains pure-- neither autobiographical nor non-autobiographical
experiences. To try to separate both is
like trying to separate milk from the water that is added. The best way is to
read the biography or biographical writings of the poet, including interviews, to know his or
her life. I try to explain some reasons in my prefaces that lead me to my
creative work.
In a way every
poem, every article and every word of a writer is autobiographical because it
represents the way he or she thinks and that way of thinking is shaped by the
family and social surroundings. This leads to the fact that humans are products
of their environments. World literary masterpieces are filled with fine creations because it is not difficult for a poet to
find painful material from life. To find
smiles from the treasury of life is difficult because often they are not there.
An artist has
to manufacture those smiles in the laboratory of imagination. The manufactured stuff is not lifelike. I am also a product of the environment in
which I grew up. Many literary critics have shed light on this aspect.
Sometimes, I
have to adopt a
persona to separate the poem from the poet to conceal self-identification.
Often poets need symbols to hide themselves. This is to create the objectivity
of a play to some extent. To illustrate
my point concretely, let me quote a few lines from the Flame that is the
subject of this question. These are from canto sixty (60) which is often
compared with a poem of Tagore:
Where love is not
suffocated
Or
another canto, number 53:
If the pangs of separation
ever prick me
I shall clap the soul of the night…
Or when the poet talks of himself in canto
52:
Receive me eagerly
a battle unending
I need support.
Cares me carefully
a rose tethered
I need tenderness.
The above lines have a persona
that may suggest something about the frustrating experiences of the poet
because of the social and religious environments or things like that. These poems talk
about love. The pronoun I is involved in these poems. To express experiences, real or imaginary,
a poet adopts a persona. The poet uses this technique as a veil. It is a forgivable deception for which the
art is often used to hide the truth from
the reader. Persona, a word from the Latin that means a mask, conceals the actual face of the
poet.
*QUESTION: In which category of the poets you
put yourself-- Romantics who take refuge in poetry, Modernists who are
perplexed by the way of the contemporary life or to some other category?
A. I don’t think I belong
to the pigeon hole of any school or category of poets. As a creative writer, my
job is to write without paying attention to any category. I have written an article, titled Symbolism
With A Special Reference To My Poetry. On this subject. One can Google to
find it.
However, I have discovered
some similarities of my poetry with the nineteenth century French symbolist
poets. How much similarity is there is anyone’s guess. I believe, some literary
evaluators will write about it some day. I have stated in this article:
Symbolists also refer to a
major literary movement of the second half of the 19th century from
I would like to add that the subject of my
writings is peace. The problem that has been posed by terrorist groups in the
twenty-first century assumes different
shapes. Modern terrorism is a new phenomenon. I can say with confidence that no
poet in the world has written so much about peace and social concerns as I
have. There are poets who have written good poems on peace and even terrorism.
But no one has given his or her entire writing life to this aspect. Most of my talks,
interviews and writings are connected with peace. To isolate peace from my poetry is
isolating roots from tree.
(From an interview with Anuradha
Sharma)
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