Nissim Ezekiel as a Poet

Ezekiel is a dedicated person to the rhyme, the extremes and pitfalls. No other Indian-English poet has today shown the ability to organise his experience into words as competently as Ezekiel. The remarkable aspect of his poetry is his sincerity and individuality. His poems generalise his own felt experience. It is neither repetitive nor shocking, but 'simple, introspective and analytical. He treats poetry as a first-hand record of the growth of his mind. He loves simplicity. His love of the genuine is explicit in the following: Life in the city, sexuality, the problems of marriage, the need to overcome alienation and to create integration among the various aspects of his character are Ezekiel's early and continuing themes There is a distinct personality expressed in the voice, themes and style. Life is seen as a quest for 4wholeness, for intellectual and spiritual satisfaction, for maturity.

Ezekiel showed that it was possible to write about oneself without-being self-consciously Indian and that an Indian poetry could express the experiences of the educated and urbanized and need not be obsessed with mythology, peasants and nationalist slogans with him a post-colonial poetry started which reflects the lives and identities that an increasing number of educated Indians knew or would seek.

Ezekiel is a poet of many a theme and one finds wider range of subjects and variety in his poetry. His poetry is not born out of dogma and he does not confine himself to a particular type, theme or technique in his poetry. He has an open mind and therefore he changes the subject matter of his poetry from time to time. He makes this clear in his poem ‘Theological’:  Ezekiel's poetry is marked by both a natural sense of Indianness. and an even.level of language and craft the real source of creative tension in his poetry is between his pervasive philosophic preoccupation and an insistent awareness of the ties stemming from the surrounding milieu. Ezekiel never postulates a truth but works out, in terms of irony, an answer which is purely tentative. In effect, even in regard to ostensibly philosophic issues, the residue of significance lies not in the validity of the speculation but in the ironic stance of the contemplation.

The new poetry (i.e., Indian English poetry after Independence) demanded a new use of language and called for the use of everyday speech rhythm in poetry. Thus there is a demand as it were, for the creation of an Indian English idiom, to give an identity to modern Indian English Poetry independent of and different from the world literatures written in English including Anglo-American literatures. Ezekiel has succeeded in creating a new Indian English idiom to a great extent.

Nizzim Ezekiel accepts the established linguistic framework but his art lies in so changing a unit of expression as to make it expressive of a state of mind. He is capable of turning words into a metaphor, image or symbols as the situation demands. It is only rarely that we come across poetic counters of expression but there is a strong undercurrent of poetry in the seemingly prosiac words. This is his characteristic mode which demonstrates his command over language and saves his poetry from degenerating into bare statement. Ezekiel is fond of using’ paradoxical language in his poetry for greater poetic effect. Ezekiel is a conscious poet ‘looking before and after’. To him poetry is not a gift to be adorned but a craft to be studied seriously. He believes in the revision of a poem and works hard on it, till it achieves a kind of perfection. A poet like a woman ‘must labour to be beautiful’. Ezekiel’s clarity of thought, clinical precision of words and phrases and employment of imagery make his poetry distinctly Indian.

The poet in Nissim Ezekiel is too self-conscious of artistic excellence while the man in him strives to explore the real meaning of existence through art. The poet, as a result, does not cither get prolix or make poetry the text of his aesthetic vision.  Metaphorically speaking, every doctrine, dream or ideal, whether realised or not, is analogous to the invention of a right poem or the writing of a real poem amounts to the discovery of a metaphysical truth. Poetry does not merely extenuate the pains of living in the poet but much more than that, his search for the real idiom as expressed therein. Ezekiel brought a sense of discipline, selfcriticism and mastery to Indian English poetry. He was the first Indian poet to have such a professional attitude.

Ezekiel's poetry is centred on a study of his conscious craftsmanship, his mastery of rhythm and diction and his treatment of modern urban life and the existential questions it generates .

These I have dwelt upon, listening to rain,

And turning in, resoled

That I must wait and train myself

To recognise the real thing,

And in the verse or friends I make

To have no trunk with what is fake.

Ezekiel's greatness lies in his effort to avoid the mistakes, which his fellow poets committed. He is a serious poet. His originality lies in his typical  poems, which are firmly rooted in Indian soil. Ezekiel's impersonalize i s

another landmark. Indeed David McCutchion's observation is a tribute to this great Indian poet: "Ezekiel belongs with Thom Gunn, R.S. Thomas, Elizabeth Jennings, Anthony Thwaite, and others like them. He has their cautious, discriminating style, precise and analytical, with its conscious rejection of the heroic and passionate as also of the sentimental and cosy. The technique is immaculate: rhymes, and carefully varied yet regular rhythms, lines that run over with a poised deliberateness. But behind the casual assurance one senses

the clenched first, the wounded tenderness."

Ezekiel's concept is that writing poetry is not just a matter of inspiration but studying the skill of writing carefully. This study demands a lot of patience from the poet. Only when unskilled poets try their hands in poetry, poetry turns out to be self-advertisement. Many of Ezekiel's poems express his view that poetry can be built in resolving the tension between two opposite forces and trying to maintain an equipoise. About this aspect Linda Hess remarks, Every mature poet finds his art demanding again and again that he synthesises certain powerful and apparently opposite forces within himself.

C.D.Narasimhaiah compliments him in the following words “But to the extent he has availed himself of the composite culture of India to which he belongs he must be said to be an important poet not merely in the Indian context, but in a consideration of those that are writing poertry anywhere in English”. What makes a poet belong to a particular country necessarily involves nationality, and his identity is to be found in being rooted in the soil. Ezekiel is deeply rooted in the Indian soil In him one discerns a certainty of touch that seems to reflect a confidence in the direction and purpose of his writing as well as an integrity of image of India, style and subject-matter.

'Dance of the Eunuchs' by Kamala Das: A Short Summary and Analysis

The Dance of the Eunuchs

It was hot, so hot, before the eunuchs came
To dance, wide skirts going round and round, cymbals
Richly clashing, and anklets jingling, jingling
Jingling... Beneath the fiery gulmohur, with
Long braids flying, dark eyes flashing, they danced and
They dance, oh, they danced till they bled... There were green
Tattoos on their cheeks, jasmines in their hair, some
Were dark and some were almost fair. Their voices
Were harsh, their songs melancholy; they sang of
Lovers dying and or children left unborn....
Some beat their drums; others beat their sorry breasts
And wailed, and writhed in vacant ecstasy. They
Were thin in limbs and dry; like half-burnt logs from
Funeral pyres, a drought and a rottenness
Were in each of them. Even the crows were so
Silent on trees, and the children wide-eyed, still;
All were watching these poor creatures' convulsions
The sky crackled then, thunder came, and lightning
And rain, a meagre rain that smelt of dust in
Attics and the urine of lizards and mice....

Included in the collection Summer in Calcutta(1965), 'Dance of the Eunuchs' is one of the most remarkable poems of Kamala Das. This is another autobiographical poem written in confessional style that symbolically portrays the poetess's personal melancholy in her own life. 

'Dance of the Eunuchs' vividly conjures up the atmosphere of a hot, tortured, corrupt, sterile and barren world through vivid symbols and images. The dance of the eunuchs whose joyless life reflects the poet‘s fractured personality is a noticeable piece of autobiographical poetry. Kamala Das has vividly visualized the world of ―vacant ecstasy and sterility through numerous functional images and symbols in her poetry. In fact Eunuchs try to eke out a livelihood by dancing. Their dancing is mechanical and painful. The conditions and the climate are forbidding. The spectators are merciless. Even God seems to add their woes. The eunuchs‘ voices are harsh and their songs are full of melancholy. The themes of the songs are those of lovers dying and children left unborn. Some beat their drums while others beat their flat breasts and wept. The joy on their faces is only a mask as they writhe in pain and their faces are really vacant. The atmosphere of heat and sterility is, first of all, expressed through ―fiery gulmohur‖ and ―the jasmines in, their hair‖ could not provide them with a soothing effect. 

The image of ―'Their sour breasts' again suggests their sterility and barrenness because they belong to neither sex. They are destined to remain unfulfilled. In fact their personality reflects the psychological outburst of the poet. It can be examined on the lines of abjection theory developed by Julia Kristeva ―The abject is that which is rejected by social reason- the communal consensus that underpins a social order . ―The abject exists accordingly somewhere between the concept of an object and the concept of the subject representing taboo elements of the self barely separated off in a liminal space.

 According to Julia Kristeva- ―The abject is situated outside the symbolic order, being forced to face it is an inherently traumatic experience, as with the repulsion presented by confrontation with  filth, waste or a corpse- an object which is violently cast out of the cultural world, having once been a subject'' Similarly the highly suggestive images of: …………………… a meager rain that smelt of dust in Attics and the urine of lizards and mice….highlight the depressed and dejected mental state of Kamala Das. According to Kristeva‘s theory of abjection, fear is the dominant/operative word. Making a connection between language and phobia, Kristeva claims that ―phobia does not disappear but slides beneath language and ―any practice of speech, in as much as it involves writing, is a language of fear.

 Similarly the heightened sensibilities of the poet through the picturisation of

the external factors forge the image of the psychological state of the poet herself. ―It is a poem that successfully delineates the contrast between the superficial joy and the inner depravity. The eunuchs become the objective correlative of suppressed desires.

Nissim Ezekiel as an Indian poet writing in English

Nissim Ezekiel is said to be essentially an Indian poet writing in English. He expresses the essence of Indian personality and is also very sensitive to the changes of his national climate and he voices the aspirations and the joys and sorrows of Indians. It has been opined, that the Indo - Anglian poets are of two factions. The neo-modernists and the neo-symbolists. The outlook of the former is coloured by humanism and irony and that of the latter is imbued with mysticism and sublimity, but a perfect blend is achieved by the two groups in the realms of beauty. A perfect example, of anlndo - Anglian poet, who was able to arrive at a synthesis between the two factions of poetry, is none other than Sarojini Naidu, for she took her stance in the neutral, middle ground, between the sacred and profane sphere of poetry4 she was at home in both the worlds and found them united in the realms of poetry.

Its possible to gain a proper perspective of the development of Indian feminine poetic tradition, only if it is considered with reference to the changing position of women in India. The very term Women poets implies an attempt to isolate women poets from men poets, and consider them in a group only on the basis of sex, some critics have wondered as to whether there is anything like feminine sensibility, feminine experiences and feminine ways of expression. The feminine character is made up of certain psychological traits as well as certain socially conditioned ones. All these features set them apart as a group. They moreover do not accept the duties which are traditionally allotted to women, in the male dominated society, and assert their new identity as independent, individualistic and conscious participants in experience. Thus these women poets do mark' the evolution of the Indian feminine Psyche from the tradition to modernity.

Nissim Ezekiel occupies an important place in post-Independence Indian English literature. He has wielded a great influence as a leading poet, editor and an occasional playwright. Besides, he is a well-known critic. Sometimes he also emerges as a politician in the guise of a fighter for cultural freedom in India. Ezekiel held many important positions. He was for many years a Professor of English in Bombay University. He is a noted name in the field of journalism. In this capacity he was editor of many journals including Poetry India (1966-67), Quest (1955-57) and Imprint (1961-70), He was an Associate Editor to the Indian P.E.N., Bombay.

As a man of letters Nissim Ezekiel is a 'Protean' figure. His achievements as a poet and playwright are considerable. K. Balachandran writes, "The post-Independence Indian poetry saw its new poetry in the fifties. Among the new poets A.K. Ramanujan, R. Parthasarathy, Shiv K. Kumar, Kamala Das, Monica Verma, O.P. Bhatnagar, Gauri Deshpande, Adil Jussawalla, Ezekiel occupies a prominent place. His versatile genius can be found in his poetry, plays, criticism, journalism and translation." Nissim Ezekiel has done a good work in Indian writing in English. He has written many volumes of poems—A Time to Change (1952), Sixty Poems (1953), The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Name (1965) and others. His plays Nalini, Marriage Poem, The Sleep-Walkers, Songs of Deprivation and Who Needs No Introduction are already staged and published. He has also edited books Indian Writers in Conference (1964), Writing in India (1965), An Emerson Reader (1965), A Martin Luther King Reader (1965) and Arthur Miller's All My Sons (1972). His literary essays published in magazines and papers are innumerable. The notable among them are 'Ideas and Modern Poetry' (1964), 'The Knowledge of Dead Secrets' (1965), 'Poetry as Knowledge' (1972), 'Sri Aurobindo on Poetry' (1972), 'Should Poetry be Read to Audience?' (1972), 'K.N. Daruwalla' (1972), 'Poetry and Philosophy,' 'Hindu Society' (1966). He has written essays on art criticism 'Modern Art in India' (1970), 'How Good is Sabavala?' (1973), and 'Paintings of the Year 1973' (1973). His essays on social criticism Thoreau and Gandhi' (1971), 'Censorship and the Writer' (1963), 'How Normal is Normality' (1972), 'Tradition and All That a Case Against the Hippies' (1973), 'A Question of Sanity' (1972) and 'Our  Academic Community' (1968) are varied and auto telic of his wide interest.

Ezekiel is an editor of several journals encouraging writing poetry, plays and criticisrm He also asked many writers for translation, affecting the theory and practice of the young poets. The writers like Rilke and W.B. Yeats influenced Ezekiel. Like Yeats, he treated poetry as the 'record of the mind's growth.' His poetic bulk indicates his growth as a poet-critic and shows his personal importance. Chetan Karnani states, "At the centre was that sincere devoted mind that wanted to discover itself. In the process, he managed to forge a unique achievement of his own."

The poet Ezekiel has already published several volumes of poems. A Time to Change (1952) was his first book of poems. For him poetry-writing was a lofty vocation, a way of life. He treated life as a journey where poesy would be the main source of discovering and organising one's own self. In a sense, poetry to Ezekiel became a way for self-realisation. He calls life a texture of poetry. He identifies himself with poetry. So all of his volumes of verse are well-knit and they are in the poet's view, a continuation of each other. Ezekiel's experiments in prose rhythms and his fine sense of structure and metrical ability. The verse rhythms of T.S. Eliot seem to haunt his mind. Ezekiel's Sixty Poems (1953), his second volume of poems was published in 1953. But these poems are loose in structure and they are less appealing.