Poem Review: ‘Life’
Caution: This article is about life. Hence be prepared for a long read.
There is life. And there is life.
One is human life — the social dimension of it. Another is human life — as species on earth.
Only humans understand the concept of life. And abuse it — both ‘socially’ and ‘naturally’.
Today, I present two poets, Poornima Laxmeshwar & Vaishnavi Sanoj, two poets who have laid their imprint in the sands of Indian English literature as published authors.
Poornima Laxmeshwar:
I had the honor of working with Poornima Laxmeshwar for more than 4 years, but that was while ago. I did not know that she had made it to the shores of the ‘publisher author’ country then. She was always the quiet but assured person who does her things without much ado. When we were writing ‘content’ together, I could sleep with immense peace of mind.
Her journey now is beyond my realm, but I had the chance to read with awe her books ‘Thirteen’ and ‘Strings Attached’. I never told her this — that she is one of the two inspirations for me in the creative writing space. I am not sure if she will ever acknowledge that.
Here is her Linkedin blurb:
A Content Specialist with an overall 11 years of experience in Accounting, Creative content, Academic and Research projects across various industries. An editor with an eye for detail and an inclination for informative content. An understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) with a strong sense of written communication. A published poet and fiction writer in several journals and magazines worldwide.
Vaishnavi Sanoj:
Vaishnavi Sanoj is a recent Linkedin connect. We had a long call at my request and connected quickly. She is from Kerala, of South West India, the land I belong and cherish. She writes beautiful poems on Lord Krishna on Instagram, professing her unbounded love for Him.
She has won quite a few creative writing contests. She is a published author of ‘ Sidereal Destiny’ , ‘Mystic Reflections’ and ‘The Wife The Mother and the Man in between’.
Here is her Linkedin blurb:
Experienced Writer with a demonstrated history of working in the publishing industry. Skilled in Fiction, English, Poetry, Ebooks, and Storytelling. Strong media and communication professional with a Bachelor’s degree focused in Education from Fathima Memorial Training College, Pallimukku, Kollam.
The poems that I chose to review of Poornima and Vaishnavi reflect the common theme of ‘Life’. Both poets bring out, in their own styles, the disparity of life in society and on earth.
Humans were born alike, but with their thoughts and deeds, they create differences. And these differences manifest as injustice in life. As I walk through both poems, which are contrasting in substance, form and style, please join me in reading and enjoying ‘social poems’, while still letting the messages sink in.
The first poem, we shall take up is ‘The Circle of Life’ by from her poetry book ‘ Strings Attached’.
Poem 1: ‘ The Circle of Life’
I see the light; you see the light.
We see each other
only to differ
in costs of what we paid for the square
we chose to stay.
You select the delicate porcelain walls with gold streams running through it,
jade-studded plants that scream ‘price tags’, powder-coating powder,
hiding fears, hiding wounds, hiding scars, the masks concealing
apprehensive smiles, insecure premonitions, glass houses with stone knobs,
marble faced, mosaic tongued, untouchable ceilings.
I see the light; you see the light.
We see each other
only to differ
in experiences we have built,
the flesh we have burnt to buy
wardrobes full of desires,
shelves full of glitter and gloss racks full of vodka, tote full of diseases,
belly full of pills on a lookout for
a fistful of sleep, a pinch of peace.
So, I walk along on the road
whistling a tune, flipping inside
to discover how much of the universe makes me,
how many verses can sing my solitude —
if at all I am capable of bearing the noise.
There is more than meets the eye in this poem, hiding more than it reveals. First, there are two actors — one is the rich bourgeois second person, another the carefree and happy protagonist, who is relatively poor.
The podium of comparison is the ‘sight of light’, with which the protagonist levels the ‘experience’ of both himself and his opposite. The sight of light, goes back to physics, where one sees another as an ‘image’.
‘I see you, and you see me’, are images formed at the back of our heads, and captured through our eyes.
‘I see the light; you see the light.’ she says. The first person narrative brings a level playing platform, then takes the road to high ground through the poem.
We see each other
only to differ
in costs of what we paid for the square
we chose to stay.
What do they see in each other? The stark contrast of the places they ‘‘choose to stay’, one costlier than the other. There are places in our cities that cost more per square foot than others.
There is no logic to this choice, but they serve as symbols of elevated opulence. Downtown LA to SOBO ( South Mumbai), Manhattan in NYC to Boat Club in Chennai, the address indicates the cost of the pride and privilege.
The primacy of real estate brings out the contrasting image of the lives of the rich and the poor. How is this opulence chosen?
The choice of the rich antagonist is telling. He ‘selects’ the ‘delicate porcelain walls with gold streams running through it’. Porcelain indicates delicateness, and also vanity. ‘Gold streams‘ bring out glitter and grandeur.
With the choice of ‘jade studded plants that scream ‘price tags’, powder-coating powder’, the vanity becomes obscene, with the artificial decorations screaming aloud the price.
The words do not just describe the choice of the rich, but drip with cynicism. How so?
Let us read the lines what follow — the choice of words describing the cynicism become very obvious. The word play here is two layered — inside is the rich crunchy piece, but coated in a cynical veneer.
The gloves come off in the next lines.
hiding fears, hiding wounds, hiding scars, the masks concealing
apprehensive smiles, insecure premonitions, glass houses with stone knobs,
marble faced, mosaic tongued, untouchable ceilings.
The grandiose exterior has a weak and insecure interior. What does the interior hide?
It hides ‘fears, wounds, scars’, ‘apprehensive smiles’, and ‘insecure premonitions’. The innards of this opulence is scary. A churning stomach, a wrenched gut, and a warped and twisted mind — anxious of the future, and guilty of the past, make up the underlying realm.
The antagonist resides in ‘glass houses with stone knobs’, by choice ( remember, he had selected the costly place of stay). One who stays in glass houses should not throw stones, they say. Add stone knobs to that — a false sense of security, and the stone knobs may never turn. Glass houses are easily broken, and hence the anxiety. The symbol of opulence is making itself vulnerable.
The ceilings are aloft and untouchable. There is so much of head space,yet the tall symbol of vanity cannot hide the inner fractures. The poet ends this ‘place to stay’ discourse with a powerful message to the antagonist.
The tone here is a bit of gleeful cynicism. Just a tinge. Unless you look for it, you will miss it.
Let us now move to the second part. The protagonist draws a fresh start line for fresh salvo — and there is where you spot this glee. ‘ I see the light, you see the light’. Again. Did you see? Well, now at this stage, remember the physics, but go back to the glee part.
Same podium. Same image. But now the second salvo.
We see each other
only to differ
in experiences we have built,
In life, one goes forward with experience, and stays back with memories. And here, the protagonist brings out the difference in the ‘experience that the antagonist has built’. How is that experience?
the flesh we have burnt to buy
wardrobes full of desires,
shelves full of glitter and gloss racks full of vodka, tote full of diseases,
belly full of pills on a lookout for
a fistful of sleep, a pinch of peace.
The experience of the antagonist has been built completely on the materialistic realm of life. The ‘flesh we have burnt to buy’ could indicate a bit of ‘leather’ opulence, symbolic leather shoes and fur coats, that cost a bomb, and are the pride of a rich wardrobe.
The wardrobe reflects ‘desires’, and the adjoining shelves ‘full of glitter and gloss’, racks ‘full of vodka’ — in an overt display of wealth. Is this display of any good?
The answer follows in the revelation of the antagonist’s state of health.‘Tote’ -vegetating ‘body full of diseases’, and ‘belly full of pills’ —he suffers from ill health. While accumulating the ‘glitter and gloss’, he has missed a beat or two in maintaining good health. There have been no workouts or bodily exertions, but only time spent on filling the racks, shelves and wardrobes.
Further, the poet brings out the point that such filled ward robes and pill boxes do not give what one desires most in life — ‘peace of mind’. The rich antagonist is always on the ‘lookout for a fistful of sleep, a pinch of peace’.
Vanity and materialistic approach to life comes at the cost of health and mental peace. Points well made. But we should remember the tone of ‘gleeful cynicism’.
Now that narrative turns to the protagonist herself. Imagine her walking through an empty street, humming a song in the night.
So, I walk along on the road
whistling a tune, flipping inside
to discover how much of the universe makes me,
how many verses can sing my solitude —
if at all I am capable of bearing the noise.
She walks, ‘whistling a tune’. It says a lot about her. She is carefree, with no ‘burden of guilt’ and ‘materialistic remnants’ in her life. She is like a lightly packed traveler for life.
She just mulls over her ‘verse of solitude’ and discovers her own voice in the process. The protagonist has cast the cynicism aside and the sneer away, as she goes on her way.
This poems leaves you to wonder of how much we pay for what we get. A resounding vote on ‘minimalism’, and a scathing verdict on the materialistic bourgeois, by poet Poornima.
Wow. I warned you. This was going to be a long read. So pack your bags for another read. There is no stopping now. Because, the vote for ‘minimalism’ leads automatically to ‘naturalism’.
Poet Vaishnavi’s poem drips of disappointment of how the human species has devolved and she has points to prove. Let us now walk through her poem, ‘ One Life’.
Poem 2: One Life
One
Is life.
But we divided
Coloring it with greed.
We started by ripping nature,
Not sparing, even a single creature.
Green locks of earth, our gluttony uprooted,
Her bodacious womb, our barbaric brain brutally polluted.
Foolishly forgetting that we are one among the rest,
We cruelly devoured her children, grabbing them from her breast.
Her gentle flesh severely bruised with our walls, wars and borders,
Her life-giving blood suffocated by our perverted policies, plastics and political orders.
Vainglorious ‘Save Environment’ campaigns, that pinch the baby and rock its cradle.
Does nature need saviour! She’ll resurrect weeding out the sapiens’ seeds,
Fully wiping from its surface, forever, the most disharmonious breeds.
Save our civilisation, now, lest face the wrathful annihilation.
Remember — lone chicks hardly survive in the nest,
The mother doesn’t depend on her child,
The child depends on its mother.
Her life runs in all,
Listen before you fall,
This inner call:
Life is
One.
We all have ‘one life’. The poem starts with a fact. Indisputable one.
But we divided
Coloring it with greed.
We started by ripping nature,
Not sparing, even a single creature.
Just after the fact, there is a burst of agony. The agony that, the life of humans are ‘divided and colored in greed’, resulting in classifications based on bias. The bias goes beyond humans, even ‘ripping nature’ and ‘not sparing even a single creature’.
This bias turns towards a sense of entitlement and superiority of the human race. And, as expected, it has disastrous outcomes. How so?
Green locks of earth, our gluttony uprooted,
Her bodacious womb, our barbaric brain brutally polluted.
Foolishly forgetting that we are one among the rest,
We cruelly devoured her children, grabbing them from her breast.
Humans have ‘uprooted’ trees and done away with massive forests ‘Green locks of earth’ because of their voracious appetite and ‘gluttony’. This unscrupulous act is a result of our ‘barbaric brains’, brutally polluting her ‘bodacious womb’.
Scathing adjectives are used here. From being the most evolved species, humans have devolved to the abysmal depths, blissfully unaware of their position that they are one of the many species that Mother Earth nourishes and nurtures, ‘forgetting that we are one among the rest’.
In the name of technological advance and development, we have snatched away many a species, our greed ‘devouring’ them, and the ‘endangered species list’is full of all other species, except humans, the creators of the list.
What a disappointment. I am at a loss for words. A moment of reality. I choose to recall a quote here. It makes sense so that I can refrain from a diatribe against my own.
“One saw a bird dying, shot by a man. It was flying with rhythmic beat and beautifully, with such freedom and lack of fear. And the gun shattered it; it fell to the earth and all the life had gone out of it. A dog fetched it, and the man collected other dead birds. He was chattering with his friend and seemed so utterly indifferent. All that he was concerned with was bringing down so many birds, and it was over as far as he was concerned. They are killing all over the world. Those marvellous, great animals of the sea, the whales, are killed by the million, and the tiger and so many other animals are now becoming endangered species. Man is the only animal that is to be dreaded.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal
Now, the poet turns towards those wannabe pretenders of ‘protection’ while the Earth is suffering for real. She writes thus:
Her gentle flesh severely bruised with our walls, wars and borders,
Her life-giving blood suffocated by our perverted policies, plastics and political orders.
Vainglorious ‘Save Environment’ campaigns, that pinch the baby and rock its cradle.
Humans have ‘bruised’ Mother Earth’s ‘gentle flesh’, with deep cutting and dividing lines of their making — ‘ walls, wars and borders’.
Add to this melee between humans and nature, the political faux pas. Disjointed and disoriented ‘policies and political orders’ by the state actors, and the ‘Vainglorious ‘Save Environment’ campaigns’, on the other side, create a polenta of confused initiatives and efforts, resulting in environmental mayhem. It is tantamount to ‘pinching the baby’ ( creating trouble through destruction of nature), and ‘rocking the cradle’ ( feigning to protect by laws and campaigns). And don’t forget the ‘plastics’.
That is a clear calling out of the eye washing efforts of the climate activists and environmentalists. Now, there are the few good ones, but many good ones are silent, and the phony ones are having a ball. This is debatable, but the poet has hit home a point. Let us leave the politics out of this review here.
Well, there has to be the sight of the end of this wanton suffering. The answer comes from Mother Nature herself. How?
Does nature need saviour! She’ll resurrect weeding out the sapiens’ seeds,
Fully wiping from its surface, forever, the most disharmonious breeds.
There is a view that the current COVID19 pandemic is Nature’s response to human misdeeds; when the factories, fishing, and the transportation stopped, and humans were locked in, Nature had started to flourish. It seems to be true that Mother Nature can save herself from her own children, at her time and will. She can rip apart anything that troubles her, ‘fully wiping from its surface’ and ‘weeding out the sapien’s seeds’.
Indeed, this is a powerful response against the unscrupulous and ignorant human species, who think ‘technological development’ is akin to progress.
The poet warns her fellow humans further that, to ‘save the civilization’ against the ‘wrathful annihilation’ that Mother Nature may unleash, as we may reach the end of our tethers, and be lonely before being wrecked.
Mother Nature does not depend on her ‘children’ and it is the other way round, the poet admonishes. Before we fall, let’s listen to our ‘inner call’ that ‘all life is one’, she concludes.
The message is clear. Humans are intelligent, but have lost their way, moving away from Nature. I will wrap the poem’s review with this quote from Peta Kelly, who echoes poet Vaishnavi’s views.
“She is soft, but knows when to stand her ground. Natural disasters aren’t a mistake. They’re not just a big ol’ whoopsy that happened when Mother Nature and Source were planning their calendars out. Mother nature is intentional. Everything about her is intentional. Every rainfall, is intentional. Every sunny day, is intentional. Every storm, is intentional and every natural disaster is intentional. She will roar when she needs, when she needs us to take a closer look. That’s what natural disasters are. She won’t rob us of our opportunity to rise up together- that’s our evolution and she’s not gonna do our dirty (epic) work for us. But she will nudge us. And she does nudge us. Do you notice? If we don’t do our best to take care of global warming, the tides will rise and beach side cities will be wiped. Perhaps our kids or our kids’ kids won’t ever see the glaciers of today. She’s not gonna cover up for us, but she will love us on our journey and gives us clues and signs. It’s up to us to pay attention.”
― Peta Kelly, Earth is Hiring: The New way to live, lead, earn and give for millennials and anyone who gives a sh*t
Humans, it is time to listen
This was a long two course meal. Let us digest.
And in the process, let us digest this message. Materialistic opulence ( as Poornima highlights), and Unscrupulous Actions against nature ( as Vaishnavi admonishes) are emerging as two of the biggest societal problems of human life.
Beyond treating this article as a ‘poetic review’, it would be sensible to look within ourselves. More so, let us take responsibility and explore minimalism and naturalism ( read sustainability). This is a topic close to my heart, and I can’t see human lives different from Mother Nature.
This is a topic I am supporting and fellow poets like Desiree Driesenaar are playing a yeoman role in creating this understanding, along with few enlightened others.
Thank you, Poornima and Vaishnavi for the two great poems, which gave me the opportunity to bring out the clear and present issues of human lives, while reading and reviewing your poems.
~Ashok Subramanian
Post Script:
a) Copyrights and words in italics of poem ‘Circle of Life’ Poornima Laxmeshwar. She can be reached here.
b) Copyrights and words in italics of poem ‘One Life’ Vaishnavi Sanoj. She can be reached here.
c) Poornima’s book links:
https://www.amazon.in/Strings-Attached-Poornima-Laxmeshwar/dp/8193940385/
d) Vaishnavi’s book links:
