M. P. Balaram
Where does ‘contemporary Malayalam poetry’ stand today? What does poetry criticism do here?
Whenever I happen to write about the poetry of Kunhappa Pattannur, I have to invariably confront these questions.
Anybody who is a keen observer of the contemporary Malayalam poetry scene has the right to pose these questions. Because it was not to cater to the comfort and happiness of a select few and to win for them fame, awards and honours that the art of poetry came into being. They might even think that it is their family property! Letters of the alphabet, words, expressions, idioms, rhythms, imaginations what more, even the quiescence between words and sentences have remained for centuries the common property of people’s poetic imagination. All those who have lived in different times and in different nations have a common claim on it regardless of the human race they belong to. Both the present and the future generations have equal right in this common claim to the art of poetry as belonging to the people at large. The common cultural heritage of the people cannot be rescinded by copyright alone.
Readers who happen to read the poems of Kunhappa Pattannur, which he has been writing for half a century now, are also bound to face these questions. Just imagine! How many human beings must have worked hard in unison, dancing, singing, listening, writing and reading, to sustain such an art form as poetry which has been entertaining and enlightening people from generation to generation? Felicitations, despair, connections, quarrels, rebellions, martyrdom, struggles, philosophical outlooks…what not; there are a cornucopia persuasions and inspirations that have been contributing for its sustenance. In the words, silences, crises, conflicts, deep sorrows, and love of the poems of Kunhappa Pattannur can be spotted the subtle fingerprints of men who have lived in different continents, different times, and spoke different languages.
The question I posed at the outset rears its head again. What is the present condition of the so-called ‘contemporary poetry’? What is its significance, if any?
Poetry has become an art form on which anybody can lay his/her hands on. All those who possess nothing except a modicum of literacy can engage ‘with confidence’ in the ‘handiwork’ of poetry. Anybody can write about anything and publish it as poetry!
To breathe clean air, to eat the food of one’s choice, to drink one’s thirst-quenching drink, to travel through one’s places of interest, to build a house of one’s imagination, to cultivate and rear up friendships, bonds of love and marriage—to do all these too much labour and sweating will be required from one who is out to get them at any cost. On top of that, in order to concretize these things, he will certainly have to depend on the hard labour put in by a number of people for a long time. He will also have to be responsible to an equal number of people. One who wishes to get himself educated, to interfere in the society, to interact with its members and to do ‘politics’ will be forced to take into count a number of things. In all the given contexts, the term or concept of ‘freedom’ acquires only limited and relative denotations.
However, the only vocation that one can do now arbitrarily, without being responsible to anyone or to oneself, and without depending on anybody is ‘churning out poetry.’ Indeed, ‘contemporary poetry’ is celebrating this unbridled freedom here today.
It is gratifying to note that the poetry of Kunhappa Pattannur stands firm here without getting carried away in the strong current of this anarchic poetry making. His poetry is here in the midst of those who struggle hard to make both ends meet and those who live a hellish life amid the deafening noises of cutthroat competition. The voice of Pattannur as a poet can be heard loud and clear from the different corners of his poetic realm. It says that poetry springs from the common cultural pool of a people apart from being the product of collective imagination and the philosophy and politics of the times we live in. And the spokesmen of ‘the contemporary poetry’ listen to them as if they are voices from an alien planet.
The so called ‘contemporary poetry’ bides its time blissfully turning the serious into frivolous, the critical into non-critical, history into nothingness and in the course projecting the ‘I’ as all important in this exercise in futility.
And this is how the poetry of Kunhappa Pattannur lives on in the opposite direction of what is touted as contemporary poetry: Drawing strength and energy from subaltern politics which refuses to be subjugated by anybody, the poetry of Pattannur has come to stay here for good with its roots running deep into the ‘miserable present of the oppressed’ even as it goes on cataloguing the tragedies in the wake of the deluge of hardships. The continent of the poetry of Pattannur maps out the evolution of the history of the world as well as India; the vicissitudes of our political life also forms part of the poet’s experiences. The poet’s opposition to the authoritarian and globalizing tendencies stands in high relief throughout the gamut of his work.
Therefore, it is not by way of meeting an obligation that I have written these words prefacing a selection of Pattannur’s poems being published in English translation, which is in fact long overdue given the appeal and wide popularity of his work, by CHORUS IMPRINTS. By writing these words I believe that I am discharging my responsibility as a critic to our language and its speakers who struggle with their thoughts, imagination, and toil hard to survive in the teeth of oppression, occupation and annihilation.
(Preface to the upcoming selection of poems by Kunjappa Pattannur, 'Rains and Rivers', published by Chorus Imprints)
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