Poetry in sediments of meaning
Shivaji Sengupta is happy looking for meaning in verse
Prem-e-Aw-Prem-e, Nazmun Nesa Piari, Ankur Prokashoni
The very title of this anthology of poetry by Nazmun Nesa Piari attracts attention: "Prem-e-Aw-Prem-e". But then what is "Aw-prem-e?" Does it mean a state of non-love? I shall come to this question later in this review. Nazmun Nesa's book has 34 poems, most of them less than a page long. Most of the themes are about love, but here, I need to pause at that word again. Yes, these poems are about love. But what kind of love? I guess it brings us back to the title! I am a student of literature, not a poet. As such writers and poets might find my analysis a bit irritating. Living in a critical world of theories about literature, we are accustomed to the western binaries --- opposition between words. The western theorist --- and I am trained as one --- looks for tensions between opposing forces of words, concepts, culture, and is interested in how the writer resolves such contradictions, and how, in turn, these are aesthetically expressed. So a title like "Preme-e-Aw-Prem-e" would immediately draw them in, as it is drawing me in. But I realize, reading the poems, that perhaps these words are not in binary opposition to each other. They describe states of being --- being in love (prem-e) and being in other states, not necessarily non-love in the romantic sense, but in the various states a human being finds oneself: returning home; a thought after a meaningful conversation; thinking about mother. These moments are "Aw-prem" that may not have anything to do with love. Nazmun Nesa Piari's poetry is about states of being in thought, beautifully expressed. And every single poem is about human beings in nature. Ms. Nesa is a Bangladeshi immigrant in Germany: a journalist, poet, producer and participant in TV talk shows; a literary critic organizing and participating in literary discussions. She left Bangladesh many years ago, and, unlike most South Asians these days, chose to settle in a non-English speaking Western European country instead of, say, Canada, the USA or England. Perhaps because she speaks fluent German, her Bangla has been very subtly influenced by the nuances of the German language. Also, Ms. Nesa was trained in the sciences and not literature. These facts about her life have had an interesting influence on her writing. Compared to English, the German language is synthetic. Compound words, often consisting of two or more nouns, abound. Nesa, who writes in Bangla, does not synthesize several words into one, but diffuses words through eye catching and interesting juxtapositions. Just what I mean by this I will explain in the section on Nesa's poetic language. Just read the poems' titles: room with golden rain; attracting attention; the Berlin Wall; rain; your words; this is the way it is- I'am fine; how will they know? all love; in love and in other states of being (prem-e-aw-prem-e)... the list goes on. Let me discuss some of the poems now. It is important to note that the poems in this anthology have been written over a period of time. The first one discussed here was written when the author was still living in Bangladesh, more than twenty years ago. According to her, she had practically given up poetry after she came to Germany. She was busy building a career. But, as John Lennon once said, "life is what happens to us when we are busy making other plans." Poetry happened to her, again. The very first one, "Je Ghar-e Sonal-i Bristi," (Room with Golden Rain) caught my attention. Let me translate a few lines: I have wanted very little,Just a room with navy blue curtains,
A red tape recorder,
From which
Green and yellow, blue music will flow,
And in the mid-day heat, the mildly humming electric fan will sprinkle golden rain.....
My soul will sleep
Silently, just
As water sleeps on water,
Forever.... What attracts my attention, possibly everyone's attention, is the pairing of dissimilar adjectives with nouns: green, yellow music; the fan sprinkling golden rain. Someone once said, only the novelty attracts --- good speech is that which makes good contact. Nazmun Nesa's poems do precisely that. Reading this poem I realized that in many ways her poetry is abstractly cinematic. Even as we ready the words on the page, as signifiers, the images signified exist in imagination, not in the real world: blue green music, fan sprinkling golden rain. Time after time, this poet will give you beautiful descriptions only to lure you away to a world of abstraction, imagination. In "Dristi Akarshan" (Visual Attraction), the first part is a vivid description of a man: In your carefully careless ways,
Blue shirt, faded blue denim jeans,
A scarf with delicate embroidery round your neck;
These are all your ways
Of attracting attention....
But then, read on;
Why do you dampen
My enthusiasm by saying —
Vanish slowly away from the molecular center of the present?
Why give up artistry? I am not even sure I've understood this poem; so I will refrain from interpreting, lest Nazmun Nesa says, like T.S Eliot in mild frustration. "That is not it at all, that is not what I meant at all....!" But that's okay. That is why poetry is so intriguing. I've loved many poems in my life that I've never understood (Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" is a good example) just because of their sounds and the images they create in my mind. To me, what the poet is playing with is attraction/abstraction juxtapositions. We attract one another but to make someone mean something to you, efface yourself, retreat, create a space. Is this what Nazmun Nesa is saying? I'm not sure. But I am with Archibald MacLeish on this: A poem should not mean,
But be. "Hurry" is quintessentially Nazmun Nesa: Shall I see you again today, you asked —
I said, no. I'm in a trance, enveloped by you,
As the moonlit night
Is veiled in the sweet smell of flowers...
You rush to embrace me,
Like a gust of a sudden wind on a quiet afternoon,
On the brink of surrender,
I control myself... Those two lines, controlling oneself from surrender's precipice, says it all about Nazmun Nesa's poetics. Her poems are packed with intense emotions, but her expressions are artistic, controlled. "Berlin-er prachir" (The Berlin Wall) is another very intriguing poem because, for me, the meaning changes as I read it. The first eight lines are a serene and graphic description of what the poet sees now that the Berlin Wall is broken: the moon hanging low, silver fish on the Neisse, way beyond the mountain cliffs, forests of deep green. You and I are side by side; this trembling moment; the air we breathe trembles too. Will you give me your hand, in love, in pain, in anxiety? But who are these lines about? Two lovers watching silently way beyond the broken wall? But what if it is the two Germanies, finally back together? Nazmun's professional background makes this interpretation extremely possible. She is a poet, activist, was once married to a famous nationalist Bangladeshi poet. In Germany, she has been involved with the media on many levels: radio, TV, print journalism. She has interviewed people from public life and the artistic world; gone to and fro, from Bangladesh to Europe and America. So, keeping all this in main, why can't we interpret these lines as the witnessing of the two Germanies back together, just as once over a quarter century ago this poet had witnessed the independence of Bangladesh, or, a little later, her own independence from controlling men? I was elated at the thought, as wrong as I could be about the possibility. After all, who benefited from the fall of the wall? Surely the people of a united Berlin! But Nazmun doesn't give us a didactive poem about that momentous event. She gives us a tender love poem, metonymically (a part standing for the whole) about Berlin. A famous American literary critic, William Wimsatt, once said that when an author's work is published, it belongs minimally to the author. It belongs to the world. Interpretation of literature is not an author's responsibility. It's ours, those of us who are not as talented as poets or novelists. I take refuge in this concept. Nazmun Nesa Piari has given me a wonderful opportunity to absorb her poems into my consciousness. They create in me sediments of meaning, sinking slowly into me at deeper and deeper levels. I have read her poetry so many times that I do not know any more whose poems they are: hers or mine. I suppose that is the ultimate success of a poet.
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