Anil Pinto: How to start a Journal in India?

Anil Pinto: How to start a Journal in India?

Summary of the poem Summer Woods by Sarojini Naidu

Saroji Naidu was born on 13th February 1879. At 13, she passed Madras Matriculation examination. She fell in love with M Govindarajulu Naidu at an early age and she was sent to England in 1895. She studied at Girton College Cambridge. During her years in England, she got familiar with many leading literary figures including Edmund Gosse and Arthur Simon and the first acted as a patron to her. She returned to India in 1898 and married Dr. Naidu. Her life in India was committed to politics, public life and poetry. She was a member of the Congress Party and many Indian leaders influenced her including Gopala Krishna Gokhale and Mahatma Gandhi.She became one of the leading freedom fighters. In 1925, she became the first woman president of the Congress and the President of All India Women's Committee and the first woman Governor in UP after independence.

Her first collection of poetry was The Golden Threshold (1905) introduced by Arthur Simon. It was dedicated to “Edmund Gosse who first showed me the way to the golden threshold”. It received high critical appreciation reader support. Her second collection of poetry was The Bird of Time published in 1912 introduced by Arthur Simon. Among her collections, The Broken Wing published in 1917  received wide critical acclaim. Her poetry could not make a breakthrough after 1917,as highly experimental modernist poetry was on the wake.

Sarojini Naidu was a romantic writer. Her poetry expressed the escapist longings of a lonely soul and decadent life of the people. She also fused Indian experiences with English rhythm. Her expertise in putting Indian village life and its delights into English verses are praiseworthy.She is known as the Nightingale of India.

Summer Woods narrates the romantic longings of the protagonist to get away from the drudgery of everyday life. It resembles the poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats. The poem begins with the poet's expression of  boredom with the city life and the desire to go to the Woods. Woods are imagined as the opposite of the city- a place where human life is uninterrupted. The poet invites her beloved to come to the woods and enjoy the life among the trees. She paints life in the woods in highly sensuous verses and elaborates the ecstasies the woods offer. The poet tempts the lover to come to the woods to listen to the songs of birds, the fragrance of the jasmine, bath in the river where golden panthers drink etc. She wishes to live with the wildness of the woods with her instincts.

In the last part of the poem, she canonizes her love and equates their love  with that of Radhika and Krishna. She also invokes Indian myths to express the depth of her passion. It is interesting to note that Indian fusion of love and sex is narrated in the poem. Amidst the trees, she invokes the Serpent King and feels immortal in their love.

A Quiet Evening by Edwin Thumboo

When I searched online for a copy of the poem A Quiet Evening by Edwin Thumboo, I hardly got a reliable copy of it. Since it is included in many prescribed syllabus of Postcolonial Poetry, I thought of reproducing it from a soiled copy of the poem offered by my friend. Click here to read an introduction to Edwin Thumboo

A Quiet Evening by Edwin Thumboo

We ate among friends,
Did not need to shine with facts
And figures, exhibit a diagnostic ease,
Cleverly express doubt or disbelief,
Or raise intricacies to simplify an argument.
There was surplus laughter, mild surprise.
We ate among friends.

He came late, our guest of honour.
Perhaps the cares of state, of nerves,
Habits of self debate, took time to shed.
One who knew famous faces thought
He looked angry and red, unlikely
To sheath his tongue, that
The good food would not help:
We ate amidst silence.

I wondered if he thought
Of those who gave so freely,
Who broke the bread of politics with him,
Now departed from the state
Under a great dispersal,
Amidst silence.

Our President
Spoke with a proper turn of mind.
We were loyal, ordinarily; even wholesome;
Would support the national cause; co-operate;
Give both hands; make minor vows
For the love of country, but retain an
Academic claw or two.

Our guest of honour rose
He spoke of Britain, noting the aches and
Ashes of government: a great people
Declining east of Suez,
Adopted less attractive shape,
A narrow self-protecting line.

He chatted, thought aloud,
Confessed that socialists were human.
The good life meant just that.
After the hard industrial fight we'll
Learn to live, admit the graces.
But there were problems...
Nearer home our local sun...
The silences of sand and jungle,
Played tricks...and made
Us difficult neighbours for other men.
And so he spoke, ruminated,
Fathomed past, present, future...

The evening was serious friendliness,
The evening was an open heart,
Dressed properly with coat and tie.
Had run to fight another day-they had important work,
Could not be spared, were needed to arrange
More demonstrations.
Impersonally, the verdict was
Exile to the motherland,
A new reality.

He stood pale, not brave, not made for politics.

Introduction to Canadian Poetry

Introduction to Canadian Poetry Click here

Analysis of 'The Country North of Belleville'

          The poem ‘The Country North of Belleville’ is taken from Al Purdy’s collection of poetry titled Beyond Remembering. ‘Belleville’ refers to a city located at the mouth of the Moira River on the Bay of Quinte in Southern Ontario. The poem is an example for Al Purdy’s deep engagement with Canadian landscape especially Ontario and the problems of human settlement in Canadian Shield.

          The poem begins with the poet’s introduction of various places in Canada. Since Canada is a settlement colony, the question of place and the attitude of settler’s to the geography are very crucial. Al Purdy lists out various specific places in Canada and remarks that people may have their own sense of beauty and no one will deny this. This may suggest that the pristine, wild and untamed nature of the locality enjoys unquestionable heights of beauty which no one doubts. The comment can also testify Al Purdy’s concern for the old Canada.

          The poet continues to describe the region and calls it as ‘a country of defeat’ because human efforts to make the country habitable fail miserably. He compares the efforts of farmers to cultivate the region as that of Sisyphus, the Greek king who was punished to push a large rock up on a steep hill, only to find it rolling back on nearing the top. The farmers gradually realize that their attempts to tame the country will not bear fruit.

         He describes the country as quiet, distant and lean covered with inches of black soil. They try their best to build human habitat on the wild country and it refuses to change and repeatedly returns to its earlier stage of a forest. The poet gives a detailed portrait of the abandoned country. The farms have tuned into forests, the fences are strewn all over, and the stones are covered with moss. He feels the forsaken farms as cities under water.

        During the fall plowing, farmers are tempted by the beauty and fertility of the land. They are wooed by the red patches of land mixed with gold. They plow the land thoroughly till the patterns in the field get as complicated as that of the brain. It may suggest people fail to yield the land and it still continue untamable. The poet also mentions that the new generation is unwilling to live with the difficulties of the country and leaves.

       In the conclusion, the poet remarks that people may revisit the country of defeat. This may be a hint at the way human settlement has changed over the years and the progression achieved. The introduction of new technologies and the change in the attitude of the people to the country have made it easy for the people to yield the country. They have to trace their way to the Canadian Shield.