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- Herausgeber: Modern History Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
K. V. Dominic Essential Readings gathers for the first time the three most important works of poetry from this shining new light of contemporary Indian verse in English: Winged Reason, Write Son, Write and Multicultural Symphony. A fourth collection of 22 previously unpublished poems round out a complete look at the first 12 years of Dominic's prolific and profound verse. Each poem includes unique Study Guide questions suitable for South Asian studies curricula.
Written in free verse, each of his poems makes the reader contemplate on intellectual, philosophical, spiritual, political, and social issues of the present world. Themes range from multiculturalism, environmental issues, social mafia, caste-ism, exploitation of women and children, poverty, and corruption to purely introspective matters. From the observation of neighborhood life to international events, and everyday forgotten tragedies of India, nothing escapes the grasp of Dominic's keen sense of the fragility of life and morality in the modern world.
Praise for the verse of K. V. Dominic
"K. V. Dominic is one of the most vibrant Indian English poets whose intense passion for the burning social and national ailments makes him a disciple of Ezekielean School of poetry. His poetic passion for the natural beauty keeps him besides the Romanticists."
-- Dr. A. K. Choudhary, English poet, critic and editor, Professor of English, Assam, India
"K. V. Dominic's poems are important additions to the growing global movement to bring about positive change and equality for all individuals. The injustices he confronts in his poems are the arrows and thorns that pierce his heart every day and the gushing blood that runs through his pen to paper."
-- Rob Harle, poet and critic, Nimbin, Australia
"K. V. Dominic is a poet of the suffering masses and oppressed sections of the society. He tries to dissect corruption at all levels, political or religious, social or academic and presents it in its true colours with all the ugliness and monstrous greed."
--Prof. T. V. Reddy, reputed English poet, writer and critic, Emeritus Professor of English from Andhra Pradesh, India
From the World Voices Series at
Modern History Press
LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Asian / Indic
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K. V. Dominic
Essential Readings and Study Guide
Poems about Social Justice, Women's Rights, and the Environment
Edited by Victor R. Volkman
World Voices Series
Modern History Press
Ann Arbor • London • Sydney
K. V. Dominic Essential Readings and Study Guide: Poems about Social Justice, Women's Rights, and the Environment
Copyright © 2016 by K.V. Dominic. All Rights Reserved.
Learn more at www.profKVDominic.com
Edited by Victor R. Volkman
From the World Voices Series
Distributed by Ingram (USA/CAN/AU), Betram’s Books (UK/EU)
ISBN-13: 978-1-61599-302-4 paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-61599-303-1 hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-61599-304-8 eBook
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dominic, K. V. (Kannappillil Varghese), 1956- | Dominic, K. V. (Kannappillil Varghese), 1956- author. Winged reason. | Dominic, K. V. (Kannappillil Varghese), 1956- author. Write son, write. | Dominic, K. V. (Kannappillil Varghese), 1956- author. Multicultural symphony.
Title: K. V. Dominic essential readings and study guide : poems about social justice, women's rights, and the environment / K. V. Dominic.
Other titles: Poems about social justice, women's rights, and the environment
Description: First edition. | Ann Arbor : Modern History Press; Distributed by Ingram (USA/CAN/AU), Betram's Books (UK/EU), 2016. | Series: World voices series | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016017238| ISBN 9781615993031 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781615993024 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Social justice--Poetry. | Women's rights--Poetry. | Environmentalism--Poetry. | Social problems--Poetry. | Social problems--Study and teaching.
Classification: LCC PR9499.4.D66 A6 2016 | DDC 821/.92--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017238
Contents of Essential Readings
The Essential Readings and Study Guide of K.V. Dominic consists of three books previously published in India and a collection of previously unpublished works, now combined for the first time in this single volume. Each book has its own Table of Contents internal to itself and includes original front matter and poems. Scholars of K.V. Dominic have often pointed to the importance of insights revealed in Foreword and Introductions to these works.
Book 1 - Winged Reason
Book 2 - Write Son, Write
Book 3 -- Multicultural Symphony
Book 4 -- A Collection of New Poems
Evolution of a Poem: Siachen Tragedy
Index (Comprehensive)
WINGED REASON
K. V. DOMINIC
Dedicated to
My Beloved Father
Varghese Kannappilly
Contents: Book 1 – Winged Reason
Foreword
Preface
In Memoriam George Joson
Long Live E. K. Nayanar
A Blissful Voyage
A Nightmare
A Sheep’s Wail
Anand’s Lot
Beauty
Connubial Bliss
Cuckoo Singing
Gayatri’s Solitude
Tsunami Camps
Harvest Feast
Haves and Have-nots
Helen and her World
I am Just a Mango Tree
International Women’s Day
Lal Salaam to Labourers
Laxmi’s Plea
My Teenage Hobby
Nature’s Bounties
Old Age
Onam
Rahul’s World
Sleepless Nights
Vrinda
What a Birth!
Human Brain
Indian Democracy
Ammini’s Lament
Ammini’s Demise
Om
Solar Eclipse
Pleasures and Pains
In the Name of God
City Versus Village
Cry of my Child
Kaumudi Teacher is no More
How I Became a Vegetarian
Michael Jackson, King of Kings
Synopsis
Reviews
About the Author
Foreword
Human mind is conditioned by experiences of and experiments with life. It is from mind that everything of imaginations, emotions, compassions, thoughts and revelations sprout. Poetry is output of all those which emanate from mind. I know Prof. K. V. Dominic personally and the poems included in this current collection, entitled Winged Reason are quite compatible with his mindset and mindscape. Prof. K. V. Dominic, a faculty member of the Post Graduate Department of English, Newman College, Thodupuzha, Kerala, India, and editor of the reputed biannual journal, Indian Journal of Postcolonial Literatures, is a sensitive and compassionate man whose sensitiveness and compassion are abundantly manifested in his poems. The following lines:
I wish I had the claws of a vulture
to fetch the skeletons from Iraq
and build a bone-palace
to imprison Bush in it.
(“A Blissful Voyage”)
demonstrate how much he is pained by Iraq war massacre. He is again pained to find plenty and poverty still staying together in our society:
A wedding feast was served in the town hall,
where expensive delicacies heaped on the plates.
I could see two ragged girls outside
struggling with the dogs in the garbage bin.
(“A Nightmare”)
Poet Dominic’s perception of beauty is discernible in the line, “Eternal Beauty is in achievements eternal” (“Beauty”).
Dominic describes the pathos of the modern cyber age civilisation, where children are sojourning to the opulent West, leaving old parents who are waiting for a phone call:
looking at the far West,
longing for her children’s calls,
she remains in solitude.
How lucky were her parents!
Lived happy, died happy;
always with their children:
(“Gayatri’s Solitude”)
This is a scenario of current loveless society.
Poet Dominic expresses anguish against man’s unequal treatments towards fellowmen which plants and animals never do:
Plants and animals never divide
the earth among themselves;
What right has the mortal man
to divide and own this immortal planet?
(“Haves and Have-nots”)
Prof. Dominic’s feeling for a sightless girl student in the classroom is affectionate and compassionate:
She is the light of the class,
light of the family,
light of the village,
but alas the light never sees itself.
(“Helen and her World”)
Dominic is a sympathetic and compassionate poet who is pained at humans’ wanton felling of trees and destroying of nature’s natural body (“I am Just a Mango Tree”).
The poet’s haikus on Nature’s bounties are splendid:
The Sun Kisses
The eye opens
Lotus blooms
(“Nature’s Bounties”)
He is philosophic at other places also.
The sun of knowledge
can never be concealed
by the moon of ignorance.
(“Solar Eclipse”)
Dominic has attempted to show how evils and sins are done by man in the name of God:
God is dethroned
in the name of God.
And human gods are crowned
in the name of God.
(“In the Name of God”)
Dominic’s compassion, sympathy, philosophy are abundantly present in forty one poems in this collection.
In fine I should like to say:
He sang songs of his soul
which are compatible with
those of humanity whole.
Pronab Kumar Majumdar (Former Secretary to the Govt. of W. Bengal) Poet, Playwright, Short Story Writer & Translator Editor: Bridge-in-Making (International Literary Journal)
Preface
Winged Reason is my maiden book of free verse consisting of thirty nine poems. It is the fruit of my five years of poetic voyage. Why the poetic muse eluded me till I was forty-eight was a question which my wife asked me recently and I am not able give a satisfactory reply. The reason might be that my life had gone smooth and comfortable without much itching of mind or arrows struck into it. As Jayanta Mahapatra wrote, poetry comes out of a “bad heart”—a heart that makes one turn secretly into a leader or a loser, pushing one to choose values, attitudes and do the not-so-obvious things (“Piercing the Rocks: Silence to Poetry”). I do believe that I matured very late, at the age of forty eight, to be able to choose values and impart them to my students as well as to the readers of my poems. Let me quote again Jayanta Mahapatra, who has been the greatest influence on my poetic musing:
Poetry has always been responsible to life. By this, one means that a poet is first of all responsible to his or her own conscience; otherwise he or she cannot be called a poet. And may be the other factors necessary to the makings of a good poet, will only come later. These may ordinarily imply the craft, or the language the poet will use with skill in his poems. But somehow, these appear as frills in a poem that is already full with feeling, because the poem would have already done what it was meant to do; in other words, touch another human being, before one came to notice the other qualities of the poem.
(“Piercing the Rocks: Silence to Poetry”)
Let me make a criticism of my poems, as Seamus Heaney, the Nobel Laureate has always been doing to his poems. As a poet, I am responsible to my own conscience and I want to convey an emotion or a message often through social criticism. I have a commitment to my students as a professor; to the reader, scholars and writers as an editor; and to all human and non-human beings as a poet. Hence I give priority to the content of a poem than to the style of language. That is the reason why my poems lack much imagery and other figures of speech. I am of opinion that poetry should be digestible as short stories and novels are appealing to the ordinary laymen. I adopt conversational style in poetry, which again attracts the ordinary readers. Here I am influenced much by the Victorian poet, Robert Browning.
So the reason which my mind disallowed “robins” (a captivating image often used by my friend and great Indo/Canadian poet, Stephen Gill) to enter and nest, is the security and comfort I enjoyed throughout my life. Stephen Gill has thus written in the preface to his masterpiece The Flame, “Discriminations and religious riots produced fears. They demolished whatever walls of security we had. These factors led me to the caves of isolation, thinking, browsing, and imagining that prepared a good recipe to be a poet” (14).
Compared to Stephen Gill’s younger days in New Delhi, I have been living in this part of my country where there has been no communal riot or terrorist attack, and I have been positioned in the midst of plenty. Kerala, my State, is known outside as God’s own land. There is equable climate; greeneries and natural beauties distinguish it from other States and tourist flood in from all parts of the world. Literacy is one hundred percent here and majority of the teenagers undergo education in schools and colleges. People here have a tendency to imitate the ways of the West, but unlike the Western people, the major concern of the people here is religion.
I have respect for Hinduism and Buddhism as they believe in Ahimsa. I feel remorse for having been a non vegetarian, eating meat and fish for fifty years. It is not an easy thing to change my staple when everyone around me dines with meat and fish. The death of my favourite twin cats haunts me every day and pricks my heart to bleed to new pastures of social criticism.
The world now shudders most because of terrorist attacks. Teenagers and youth are attracted to terrorism, mesmerized by the noble idea of self-sacrifices done to God. The antisocial leaders of terrorism exploit their religions to bring down the society to chaos, angst and panic. They loot the people, kidnap innocent persons and amass billions through bargain. The irony is that they do it in the name of God. When we go through the pages of world history we find that most of the homicides and genocides were done in the name of God.
Another thorn that thrusts my heart is the corruption done by the politicians and government officials. Poor people are strangled through taxes and their governments do nothing for their welfare. The government is always with the rich, caring for their comfort and luxury. The rich can evade taxes; exploit the weaker sections; torture and kill anyone they like; they get the protection of police; can escape legal punishments. Why because they have money. In fact my country as well as the world as such is ruled by a few multimillionaires who constitute not even one percent of the world population. It is a shocking truth that a thousand million people live in this world without a square meal a day when raw and cooked food in thousands of tons is wasted everyday. How can we justify this luxury? One can become rich only at the exploitation of the poor. It is the duty of the rich as well as the developed countries to alleviate the miseries of the poor.
The above mentioned are the arrows and thorns that pierce my heart everyday and the gushing blood runs through my pen to paper. Now, let me explain the immediate provocation which fired my imagination. One of my colleagues, Prof. George Joson, of the Department of Mathematics drowned in a river as he was driving back to his house at 11 pm on 14 May 2004. It was raining cats and dogs throughout the night, and the body was found out in the early morning frozen in the driver’s seat of his car. Had there not been a flood in the river that night, he would not have died. Joson was my intimate friend, living with his unemployed wife and three little daughters—resembling three angels—just two hundred metres away from my house. Thus my “bad heart”—heavy and brimming with grief, released the tension on paper after two days.
The poetic muse--let me call it cuckoo, the bird which I like most—started to sing in my mind. Thank God, He sent the cuckoo to sit on the branch of my mind before it dried by old age. My first poem, “In Memoriam George Joson” was followed by “Long Live E. K. Nayanar.” E. K. Nayanar, the Communist Chief Minister of Kerala died on 15th May 2004, the day when Joson’s body was buried. Nayanar was the most lovable CM, Kerala had ever born. He was highly humourous, simple and as innocent as a lamb. Being a Socialist I have great love and respect for him. These two poems were published one after another in Kerala Private College Teacher, a journal of All Kerala Private College Teachers’ Association and won acclaim from professors and lecturers in Kerala.
The popularity gained through the poems goaded me to write more and more and I tried my pen on various social issues. The major theme of my poetry is the eternal relationship between Man, Nature and God. Though baptized a Christian, I am primarily an Indian, and it is my duty as a teacher and poet to instil Indian values to my students and countrymen and also propagate these noble values to the rest of the world. I believe in the concept of jeevatma and paramatma (individual soul and universal soul) and that all living beings are part of paramatma or God. Again I believe in the Indian concept of Aham Brahmasmi (I am the God). Advaita seems to me more reasonable and acceptable than Dvaita. Thus I find the eternal affinity between Man, Nature and God. Man is not given liberty to kill other beings nor is he allowed to uproot plants and trees for his luxuries. The Creator has given man permission to use plants just for his survival. That is the law of Nature. No animal kills others except for food. Man needs only plants for his sustenance. His teeth and digestive system suit vegetarian diet. Adam and Eve lived on plants alone in the Garden of Eden. Animals were the close companions of our first parents. This philosophy of life is portrayed in several of my poems. “A Sheep’s Wail,” “Haves and Have-nots,” “I am Just a Mango Tree,” “My Teenage Hobby,” “Ammini’s Lament,” “Ammini’s Demise,” “Om,” “How I Became a Vegetarian,” are the poems in this book proclaiming this theme.
Disparities in society, problems of the poor, the down-trodden, the marginalized and the old are the themes of the poems “A Nightmare,” “Anand’s Lot,” “Beauty,” “Tsunami Camps,” “Gayatri’s Solitude,” “Helen and her World,” “International Women’s Day,” “Lal Salaam to Labourers,” “Laxmi’s Plea,” “Rahul’s World,” “Vrinda,” “What a Birth!,” “Cry of my Child,” and “Old Age.”
Politics, terrorism, communalism, corruption and exploitation by political parties and religions find subjects of thought in the poems “A Blissful Voyage,” “God’s will be Pleased,” “Indian Democracy,” “Solar Eclipse,” and “In the Name of God.”
Description of Nature is found in the poems “Nature’s bounties,” “Harvest Feast,” “Cuckoo Singing,” “Onam,” and “Sleepless Nights.”
In the poems “Kaumudi Teacher is no More” and “Michael Jackson, King of Kings,” two celebrities in different fields are honoured.
The contrast of city and village lives is the theme of “City Versus Village.” The ebb and flow of happiness and sorrow is the theme of the poem “Pleasures and Pains.” In “Connubial Bliss” marriage is contrasted with celibacy. “Human Brain” is a poem drawing comparison of human brain with animal brain. Many of the poems in this book have been published periodically in national and international journals.
Now let me recollect the poets and philosophers who influenced my poetic musings. The Romantic poets--Wordsworth, Blake, Shelley and Keats fired my imagination considerably. The Victorians like Browning, Tennyson and Arnold and American poets Frost and Dickinson exercised their influence on me one way or other. Indian English poets, Ezekiel, Mahapatra and Kamala Das are my models in the use of diction and syntax. My own friends and contemporary poets, Stephen Gill, DC Chambial, PK Majumdar, Hazara Singh, OP Arora, Aju Mukhopadhyay, R. K. Bhusan, Jaydeep Sarangi, Sunil Sharma and several others contributed their share in my present development. Christ, Vivekananda, Marx, Darwin, Sree Narayana, Said, Fanon, Gandhi, Nehru, Mother Teresa, Baba Amte, Salim Ali, Steve Irwin are the holy men, philosophers, theoreticians, humanitarians, ecologists and Nature lovers who shaped my view of life.
I am winding up my preface with an acknowledgement to those who inspired me and helped me in the production of this book. First and foremost, my mind flies to Him with a bouquet of gratitude for allowing me to live all these years with a sound body and mind. I give Him special thanks for sending a cuckoo to my mind and making it sing continuously. Secondly I remember the inspiration given to me by my wife, Anne, and my children, Rose and Joe. They are also good critics of my poems. I am indebted to Prof. K. J. Francis, Nirmala College, Muvattupuzha, Kerala, who has been an admirer of my poems, and it was he who compelled me to publish this anthology. I am much obliged to my bosom friend, Mr. Sudarshan Kecherry, the proprietor of Authorspress, New Delhi, for accepting this book for publication. He is a rare gem among publishers—a scholar, a visionary, a sage and above all a proper guide to emerging writers. Finally I express my immense gratitude to my former student, Mr. K. K. Anas, Research Scholar in France, for the wonderful illustrations and cover design of this book.
K. V. Dominic
In Memoriam George Joson
(elegy written on a colleague who diedin a car accident on 14. 05. 2004)
Why did you leave us so soon, dear Joson?
(We are unable to find any reason.)
It stunned and benumbed us.
How unbearable the grief and pain
For your beloved family and friends
The most painful was the sight
When your youngest kid,
not knowing what has happened,
kissed your face often
and plucked flowers
from your wreath;
tossed them to her sisters weeping and screaming
What a game He plays!
When He comes with His chariot,
none can say--”wait”.
Joson
Now we understand the mystery of your ever being fast--
fast in your words;
fast in your walk;
fast in your action,
and FAST UNTO DEATH.
Life is uncertain
for the mighty and the meek
grants it certainty
Also to those
who are our charge
And deny them the risk of fall--
Great is the loss
to academia too.
Your absence, everywhere is haunting
We find it hard
to console and reconcile
with the inevitable!
We are all
bound by His will
to be here
to be away.
As the great poet sang:
We are all puppets in His hands,
dancing to His various tunes.
The best is to resign
to what He ordains
in time and out of time.
Questions
•What is the attitude of the poet to Death?
•Who is the great poet meant in the lines: “We are all puppets in His hands, / dancing to His various tunes”?
Long Live E. K. Nayanar
(elegy written on E. K. Nayanar*who passed away on 15. 05. 2004)
“Long live E. K. Nayanar!”
This mantra is being muttered
by millions of your comrades.
We are in a trance
since you bade us “Good bye.”
It is impossible to believe
our dearest CM is no more.
A vast surging
sea of humanity
followed wailing and weeping
on your last journey.
No rain could stop them;
no sleep could retreat them.
Thus mourning with the Nature,
your people swarmed round your body,
bidding “Lal Salaam, Lal Salaam.’
You were a true Communist;
a comrade to the core of your being,
a rare species,
compassion and love
an epitome of Socialism.
Yet did give due respect and valued
those even who differed from you.
Your rhetoric left a lasting spell!
your utterances dance
on the tongues and lips of your sheep.
Deep sounding like a bassoon,
it stirred and the public cheered.
Was it mere rhetoric
that enchanted your audience?
Nay, the words came from your heart;
you meant what you spoke.
people believed
what you said.
Such was your charisma;
It reminds us of the rare species
of rhetoricians and statesmen.
You were truly a patriot;
had no foes, only friends.
Your heart bled at the sight of
the tears of the poor,
the miseries of the wretched,
the sufferings of the downtrodden,
pricked your heart often.
You championed the cause of the denied
and the deprived.
your sense of humour was inimitable
very few leaders sparkled in that.
Your absence from amidst us
shows your presence among the stars.
You are our polestar
who saves us from the Darkness.
You will continue to steer
the ship of our dear nation
to the land of the blessings and bounties.
*E. K. Nayanar: Thrice Chief Minister of Kerala, India
Questions
•What are the qualities that made Chief Minister E. K. Nayanar favourite of the people?
A Blissful Voyage
Let my mind soar high
on the wings of the Muses
and visit the places
inaccessible.
Had I the wings of a mallard
I could fly to the States,
shake the hand of Obama,
and thank my American sisters and brothers.
I wish I had the claws of a vulture
to fetch the skeletons from Iraq
and build a bone-palace
to imprison Bush in it.
If I could fly like an angel,
would plead all prophets
