Aristotle in his book ‘Poetics’ agrees with Plato that poetry is imitation and that imitation is an inborn instinct, but in the same gasp disagrees with his master that poetry is twice removed from reality and argues that poetry represents life. Claiming the poet as a prophet Aristotle colorfully celebrates the state of a poet when he announces that a poet predicts future which is possible according to the law of probability. Aristotle further agrees with his mentor that poetry appeals to emotions. Moving ahead in the debate Arnold in ‘Study of Poetry’ writes: “It is in poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on will find an ever surer and surer stay.” Arnold while praising the longevity of poetry reveals that poetry has immense future and is capable of higher use, better interpretations to understand life, best remedy to console human heart and luxury to lure sensitivities embedded within soul. Poetry to Arnold is what it was to Wordsworth, ‘the breath and spirit of all knowledge’. What makes Arnold so louder is the fact that he says “In poetry, however, the criticism of life has to be made conformably to the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty; further he says publicly that poetry can be interpreted in two ways: movement of the outer world and by inward world of man’s moral and spiritual nature…” One more serious dimension of poetry is what ‘Impersonal Theory of Poetry’ formulated by T.S.Eliot. He writes ‘the poet, the man, are two different entities’ and that the poet has no ‘personality’ of his own but gets submerged in his own personality, feelings and experience into the personality and feelings of the subject of his poetry. Eliot says, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality”.
Coming to the ‘ …And the Silence Whispered’ by Wani Nazir, a mediocre reader like me tries to dive deep into the ocean of poetic creation to earn a pearl at least which experts come across easily. My reading to the above mentioned poetic musing by Wani Nazir has in above-board nature guided me to explore something hitherto unsigned. In the poem ‘Resurrection’ the bard has picked my little finger to surpass the maze of poetic creation.
My pen tarried to uncertainty
The blank canvas eagerly to hear
And bear the strokes of my pen so mute
Poet’s brain
With senses five
Cohabits with the stimuli
Events, objects, all that is “without”,
A few orgasmic spasms,
The fecund womb- the cerebrum
Is conceived; ( Birth of a Poem)
The poet has dropped a secret deep into the ears of a reader to unfold the mystery of ‘state of mind’ of a poet and the observable fact of mind at work.
‘In Impasse’, the poet has opened up his tuft of frustration to share with a reader how difficult it is to come out the laborious labyrinth of life.
A pin drop silence plummeted again,
No whisper, nor a stir
Just those sighs and sobs
Sprawled on the canvas!
Puzzled I stand with my fingers crossed,
In the midst of chaos and confusions
Vacillating between light and darkness
Torn between fact and falsehood ( Dilemma)
As cited above a poet cannot cut off himself from the ambits of which he is part and parcel. He is psychologicallycoupled with the very essence of the society all the way throughintensesurveillance. He engrosses his senses to synchronize with the ‘pulse’ shudderingoutside his orb. He finds a bond between rudimentary realities of life exhibiting pain and pleasure on one hand on the earth and on the other his spiritual wings hauls him up afar ether to know what is indefinite. Poetry of Wani Nazir is copious with such competence that not only addresses the woes and worries of the world but also takes a lead to plug the chasms of chaos.
In a fit of some inexplicable torpor,
I walked bare foot in the sands of my imagination;
Who could have followed me?
My footprints too died an ephemeral death, ( Transformation)
When the dark bosom of the earth
Will spill its fragments all about my body
And the unknown chests of the skies
Will open up their doors to welcome my soul; ( The Last Ride)
In ‘ A lament’ for instance the narrator is once again relating human anguish by taking resortto language which suits to a painful heart, thus he links his reader with what is going on with the narrator which fundamentally is the role of a good poet who never gives up to detach his reader with source of suffering.
No more is she full of life
She has lost her dear hubby
In some fake orchestrated encounter
Leaving behind his wife and a kid;
Ferried to some unknown realm
From whose bourn none returns!
This I wished but didn’t come true
My waiting did not bear any fruit
The Muse came but whispered in
The verses painful and elegiac,
I held my pen in my hand,
And wrote a chain of doleful tales
That you read with weeping heart. (My Muse)
From silent whispers of Wani Nazir mysticismstrikes a chord of supernatural music that goes on in the background indicating that the poet is conscious of the metaphysical realms the traces of which are well seen in various poems.
The cycling story recycles and recycles
O Drop of rain! What cosmic order do you follow?
Are you too imprisoned in “ Awagawan”?
Will you never achieve “ Mukti” like me?(Transmigration)
In ‘Mystic Musing’ the trend follows. The narrator is again in search of truth and his struggle to unfasten his conscious mind from the clutches of desires is skillfully presented in the poem mentioned above.
The ultimate truth- the Satya, the Haq
I, an Abhimanyu,
Captive in the vortex
Of Chakravyuh.
Who will hitch the wagon
Of my being
From the quaggyMyaJaal?
Poems like ‘ Mystic Mariner’, ‘To my Saqi’, ‘Let’s Awake’ and ‘Spiritual Pageantry’ are flooded with clues wherein a narrator is either listening to echoes of theether or communicating with the imaginary though well bedecked creatures of nature like silence, darkness amidst mystic aura.
‘In Saqi e Kawthar (PBUH)’, an ardent lover’s passion is devotionally depicted innocently. Nazir Wani has succeeded in blending conventional “ Nat-i-Sharief” with more supple form adopted throughout anthology. Not following the conventional verse form, his poetry is free flowing like a brook dancing and singing on its own tune. He has not allowed his flow to stop by infusing strict verse forms and rhyme which to me as a mediocre reader is not so significant save experts who would have loved to read few of the poems following a strict meter system. Though fifteen Tankas have added grace to the anthology. Keeping in view the introduction of Tankas, Mr. Nazir Wani has skillfully achieved one more milestone.Coming back to the above mentioned poem, the poet, like a true lover of his beloved Prophet, raises his hands high in hope.
On the day of judgement, when,
My beloved Saqi, on Al-Kawther,
Will be distributing the eternal waters
Amongst the lucky, the chosen,
Consign me not- Your sinner slave, to oblivion.
It would have been a complaint; a serious one from poetry lovers had ‘Silence Whispered’ not included poems like ‘Be True! A tribute to Shakespeare’, ‘Logic and Imagination, A tribute to Albert Einstein’, ‘Charlie Chaplin’. Nazir Wani has once again transported us from an abstract world to a realistic world and his poetic excellence has reached too far to pay homage to legends of the world, thus the poet has succeeded in breaking the convention of poetry which to many is only a thread hanging in the air.
Through ‘Silence Whispered’ Nazir Wani has succeeded in creating a specific niche in our hearts for every poem almost carries us along to touch the bay of better understanding of his poetic endowment. Foot notes at suitable places have filled the gap which otherwise would have confused the non Arabic reader.
There are few occasions where the poet has been carried by emotions without taking the subject seriously like in one of his poems ‘My Muse’, he quotes the lines of Browning:
“God is in Heaven
And all’s right with the world”
Confining God to Heaven is what reduces the might of the creator and the poet has used the quote to satisfy the needs of his own verse.
I wish and pray that in future ‘Silence Whispered’ would reverberate plight and pleasure of the poet. A part from his unmatched verses, what attracts our attention is a kind of diction that has been employed to narrate what is otherwise inaudible. Metaphors, personifications and imagery have almost equating this anthology with Aga Shahid’s caliber on one hand and flexibility of form has placed it in the pile of Robert Frost.
The book over all is anextraordinary collection of poetic muse which will definitely administrate inspiration deep down into the spines of poetry lovers and budding poets can take this project as an eye opener to broaden their spectrum.
