From - Reviews, Vol I, Issue II
Light
beyond Decay
Sunil
Sharma in his third poetry collection, ‘Mundane My Muse’, has brought a blend
of precision and compassion to a body of his poems that is caring, focused and
always deeply-felt. The words and rhythm of his wrenching poems not only
delight the ear but refills the mind and body. He places his readers face to
face with the truth of life.
Given
that so much, his poems feel solidarity with those who have suffered as well as
a quiet celebration of the peacetime and the nature that is so easily lost, so
quickly taken for granted, so undervalued. To me, poetry doesn’t get any better
than this at times.
The title of the book ‘Mundane My Muse’
is a gentle understatement of the poet’s creative soul. Remarkably enough, the
book seems both local and global. The poet here finds symbols in,
This sleepy afternoon,/In a small fishing
village,/Off the beach in SW, Australia,/A breeze slips in,/Blowing a faded
rose. (Beach poem)
In
his Foreword, Rob Harle has rightly pointed out ‘In many of Sunil’s poems there
is the dichotomy of the haves and the have not’s” and the elegance and beauty
of nature contrasted with the crass, ugliness of high-rise concrete jungles. In
this substantial collection of poems, eighty in all, we are treated to a
delightful smorgasbord of literary gems.’
There
is a very thin but discernible kind streak in his poems which is not the same
as having a soft heart. Sometimes it has become a recipe for trouble but his
observing eye is so restlessly hungry for detail that it can’t confine itself
to a single point of view. ‘Finally, poetry is coming face to face with your
spiritual truths that refuse to be commodified and reified by a mass culture.
It fulfils you and makes you whole,’ the poet remarked once.
Sunil Sharma in his preface has said,
‘Poetry is like the first rains over a smoggy town: It washes away all the
grime and revives the dormant seedling sand revitalizes the corroded cores of
your inner- life.’ He is a clear eyed poet, never shy of telling the truth and
his writings are trustworthy as testimony.
His poems revolve around the trials and tribulations of life and
the firmness of living in present. They show us life through the conduits of a
brilliant mind. The neglected soul and the anguished mind may drive into tears
yet there is no mistaking of fact that a positive tone rings in silence at the
core.
Much
of the struggles are rooted in its devotion to life; its settings, its long
shadows and mirrors and hermetically sealed world. Not that it happens in a
bubble, but sometimes lusciously dark yet the poet goes deeper sketching each
one’s real self. The poet touches upon a few pressure points which instantly
determine the poem’s trajectory with ease and finesse. More impressive is the
expertly weighted interplay between words and rhythm.
Like a few of his poems here, they are
so short that your heart asks for more,
Blank/Eyes/Of the/Widowed mother,/Totally/Blank
-/Like a/Lonely/Broken/Country road,/On a summer/Night. (Blank)
We are all
familiar, if only for a short period, with the unreal seeming world. The
tenuousness of the subject is beautifully underlined. His poems underpin that the time has come for delving deep inside to explore the
bursting lifeline within a chaotic existence and seek beauty and happiness of
mankind.
Detritus is scattered around; in fact, the
lamp is part of its dreamy calm will give way to a strange image.
The flickering lamp,/A personal statement/Of a
believer’s faith,/Emitting a strange luminosity/That beats the electric light!
(Flickering Lamp)
And the ultimate luxury is not just
enough but a little more timeless emblems of civilization. Some of his poems
are brutally elegant. The images refracted through his words are commendably
incisive and rekindle the urge to explore life.
His words pop into prickly sharp focus
and fresh colour and the images go past the reader one after another in a fluid
motion- no clichés no exaggeration, each utterly distinct in his own identity,
each the potential hero, like the slum boy. The venerable poet has always come
out with flying colors when grappling with the reality check.
Four women/Varied age groups/Walking down
the/Solitary/Country lane from/The far-off river,/This/Early morning,/Balancing
heavy/Five-six/Pots piled up/On each other,/A daily act of gifted/Acrobats.
(Acrobats)
An uproariously interesting, the
narrative in some of his poems is self-reflective and the poet embodies the
salient part. There is nothing negative or cynical, no sense that it will be
betrayed by the surroundings. His poems are not of an unusual kind, simply and
movingly encapsulates the concept, never indulge in enraging, dreary and opaque
forms.
Bring your sad words,/I will make them smile/On the faces of
war-orphans/Street children/And cancer patients (Bring Your Words)
In defense of human pursuits and values,
thereby not neutralized, he has never gone over the edge. Poetry is always in
his bones. It occurs to me that there are numerous times, the poet notes the
ambiguity in life and pays close attention to the word usage for illustration.
Call it energy, if you like. He is capable of touching as well as loving. Like
many other poets, he brings to his poem, an elegant narrative voice that find
resonance with your life and experience.
In silky shadows that quiver constantly/With
every breath of wind,/Thus—/Creating, on this golden afternoon,/A rich world of
chiaroscuro.
And then this words heighten the emotion
and although a little fretful at the start, the poem effects a magical turn at
the end. A whole enchanting world is created and unveiled bit by bit.
Reminded of the famous/Japanese scroll
paintings/That turn the bare home walls/Into vibrant/Vivid works
of/Immaculate/Art. (A February Afternoon)
The
poem begins with silky shadows but creates a rich world of chiaroscuro. The
bare home walls testify to an effective style where certainty is more than is
claimed. We find the poet at its most eloquent in the ‘Vivid works of
Immaculate Art’ and succumbs to the music of the divine drum.
Works of nature
often spark his imagination and are mapped out with a human tag. He is at his poetic
best in this form of poems and elaborates
on this aspect, backing himself for his ability to meet natural elements on
their own terms, instead of as mere words or symbols.
The Champa in big clusters,/Blooming on the bald
tree;/Nature has covered amply/
The tree’s
shocking bareness; (Adornment)
Or
The graceful
bamboos/Awash in the golden hue,/On this bright morning,/Swaying like
amazons,/Along the serpentine/Country lane; (Autumn)
This
poetry collection is elevated by the same fluent and freewheeling style that’s
made Sunil Sharma, an accomplished poet. The way of looking at ourselves as
well as looking at the world He has aptly said ‘Poetry is a surviving link with
our heroic past, with our mythological memory, with a unique moment when man
and god were not yet cruelly split but were real for the other and having a
continual dialogue. Like these two plants, it is endangered and becoming
exotic’.
In his poem ‘A Vast Canvas’, the poet here
turns his ideas into a repository of fleeting images that hits the right tone.
The rhythms and play of words are so deep that his readers can see the
astonishing view of the literary gems that lies beyond.
A vast sheet/Of shining grass/Unfurled across/The silent plain,/Away
from the highway,/The soothing spread/Buttoned with/Yellow, red, white/Wild
flowers/Smiling in the/Soft morning-light; (A Vast Canvas)
After reading the book, we find a voice
at the end that echoes with a surge of inner life within our soul. It
illustrates the way we pick up threads from line to line, stanza to stanza and
move on in a quiet alleyway scaling heights on the way that allows the poet and
the reader to get in touch with each other.
It
is a beautiful collection and not to be missed. The publisher Authorspress, New
Delhi, India, deserves to be complimented for this noble effort.
Reviewed
by Gopal Lahiri
Gopal Lahiri was born and grew up in Kolkata. He is
a bilingual poet, writer, editor, critic and translator and widely published in
Bengali and English language. He currently
lives in Mumbai, India and can be reached at glahiri@gmail.com
and www.gopallahiri.blogspot.com .
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