Eagam Khaling
I had heard Suman Bantawa’s name many times, but I was able to meet him in person only in the year 2000. Since then, I have been reading his published anthologies of poems like Manchheko Arko Pradesh (1994), Shaileepath (1995) Iha1 (2005) and Ghamko Chhaya (2013), and a book of literary criticism Taatparya (2021). I have found him a very serious writer, and that is why I have planned to write only a few things on some of his poems from Iha, with a sense of obligation of a reader to his much-appreciated poet.
I, being a reader of poetry, personally believe that Suman being a poet has been able to stand on his own. I find him to be an honest poet in his expressions. His poems depict a commitment to living a creative life, not only with his mere literary and intellectual dispositions but with everything related to his creative and intellectual world. For him, his writings make him write. His compositions are the outcomes of his experiences with his life, and this is the one reason that makes his expression alive.
In intuition, sometimes, we become one with the truth, where the objects (both pure and empirical) given is experienced and understood not as an object outside the self but the part of the self. This self becomes a transcending self between the poet and his poem. It can be realized in the lines of the poem ‘Unexpressed’:
Any pregnant woman’s
Swollen beautiful body portraits
An excellent climax of expression,
But the hidden thoughts
Through a painful chimney
Fly bending and crawling
Rolls of smokes,
Which are struggling
To reach the sky.
[Iha, p.54]
The images in the above poem take us to the source of what it is to be a human being. The beautiful in the eyes of beholders is not a slim body of a woman but in the body of a pregnant woman, who is prepared to gain ‘motherhood’, a pious relation. The bliss of motherhood is portrayed with minute softness in the sensibility of the poems. This portrait transcends into an object of experience, and similar genders fall into an intuition. When I say something about the intuition in his poem, many would not agree with me but what I meant is a creative intuition. This intuition is not an abstract concept but a state of mind that possesses the quality of feelings, images and contemplated feelings. The poetic expression is different from the naturalistic expression of feelings and signs of concepts. Rather, it is extra-intellectual cognition, which means even the concept that we find in a poem is not universal but personal because a poem is the work of an individual. This is only possible in a poem because it has its freedom. Benedetto Croce is quite right when he tells us that poetry lies outside logic though we can use it as contents. Let us be ourselves clear by taking an example of anger that no intellectual deliberation can give us the idea of anger. We know what is to be angry only by being angry. The poem ‘Loneliness’ does not extend to express the meaning of loneliness. Rather, it makes us fall into a situation similar to the recollected one. This ability of the expression of the poem to make the readers fall into the intuition of such kind is a real capability of a poet and a sign of a mature poet. Suman seems mature enough to universalize his expressions of the experiences of life in every single poem. He has already tried to insert a soul in his experience, with an appeal of transcending our experience in his poems. That is why Dr. Jiwan Namdung finds him to be a poet of many possibilities. This possibility is the possibility of a genuine poet.
Suman’s poems seem simple at the first glance, but as we go searching deeper, we get many new meanings and uses in the application of the concepts in the images of his poems. I find a meaningful relation between every title and content of the poem. I find him as a fine balancer in the application of intellectual content to a poem. If the word ‘Poet’ is to be substituted for the word ‘Chef’, then it can be said he has tried to serve some tasty as well as healthy foods differently on every single palate from his creative kitchen. And as a reader, I would be happy waiting for his every item.
Stone but
Being hard is worshipable.
Or
Hardness is its existence.
Absolutely silent.
Creating form,
Chisel becomes possibility for the artist.
But bearing hundreds of tortures
Turns into pieces
And breaking thousands and thousands
In the recreation of a form
That stone,
That harshness,
Then becomes infinite!
Immortal!
Greatness!
A divinity.
[‘Immortality’, Iha, p.44]
In this poem, we find the use of the opposite meanings. The stone is much bigger and larger than a human being. Hardness is more transparent than being a human self. Here, a belief that never dies is also a concept. There is also an appeal that there cannot be knowledge without peace of mind. Again, the stone has gained ‘Brahmatva’ due to its hardness (or harshness) and soullessness, becomes weightless and transient. It is like taking from “It is” to “It is not” and “It is not” to “It is”. Thus, we get some conceptions of philosophical thoughts in his poems.
Writing poetry is related to our lives and experiences in the world. We human beings are born to express and to be expressed ourselves through any possible medium. We realize a divine goal in it. Poetry seems to be one of the powerful mediums of expression through language.
Change is a law of nature. Our thinking mind is continuously in flux. Every time a person is becoming, and as a consequence, he cannot remain fixed to a particular subject (or object). On the opposite, if it is possible, then there should be an ultimate liberation of the soul of an individual during his lifetime. It is also a way of clinging, but this does not mean that there is not any liberation, and otherwise, it would have not been said that writing poetry is the liberation of emotions and feelings. However, there is no final (ultimate) liberation in the poetry of a poet. Creative liberation continues through every single piece of writing. He cannot survive a single creation for his whole life, rather he keeps moving from one creation to another. For this, he has converted his world into a creative world and vice-versa.
His consciousness of the life of the poem has given his poems a philosophical form. He treats it so differently and makes us feel, re-image, and think. This thinking is thinking about a life-world and everything that is connected with it. This type of appeal in his poem makes all kinds of readers enjoy reading his poems. But for a serious reader, there are many things to be discovered in his poems.
Suman has been able to establish his signature style, and this can be learned from the readings of his four books (and other writings). A reader can search his life in the poems of the books, but that is not enough because his poems demand some more scratches. It is clear that his expertise is not only in the constructions of the images and metaphors but also in some of the noble uses of words, sentences and theories, and to discover all of them, one has to exert himself.
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1.Suman Bantawa, Iha, Darjeeling, Panchasheel Prakashan, 2005.
[Dr. Suman Bantawa is a poet and critic. He has published his research papers and articles in different journals and magazines. At present, he is working as a guest lecturer in the Nepali Department of Sikkim University.]