A poet's obligation

 

‘Poet’s obligation’ is the title of one of Pablo Neruda’s poems. Obligations are not laws; they speak more of ‘reethi’ or norms than ‘neethi’ or laws, for there are of course obligations associated with the law. The poet may or may not feel obliged by some legal, moral or social duty to act in a particular way or write about certain things, but in the end, like all artists and citizens, a large part of being is indulgence. We write or act because we feel  we owe ourselves something.  

Neruda believed that it was his destiny ‘to open the doors’ of prisons wherein there could be someone who for whatever reason ‘is not listening to the sea.’  He is therefore compelled to ‘ceaselessly listen to and keep the sea’s lamenting in [his] awareness.’

The ‘prisoner’ may hear and ask, ‘how can I reach the sea’ thereafter. And, as answer, Neruda offers the following:

And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,


the starry echoes of the wave,


a breaking up of foam and quicksand,


a rustling of salt withdrawing,


the grey cry of the sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea


will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

That’s a social task but it is at the same time a personal choice. No one held a gun at Neruda’s head and told him to stand witness to oceanic turmoil, the coronas of the galaxy, unnecessary but nevertheless ceaselessly produced poverty, the foam and quicksand of promise and pledge, the irreverent and insightful babble of the nondescript, or the grotesque interplay between god and devil. He chose to write so that through him the elements will offer salve to hearts shattered by unrequited love, injustice and humiliation.

If I were to think of the work of all the poets I have read, I am sure there will be multiple answers to the question, ‘why does/did he/she write?’ It’s like asking someone ‘why do you live?’ Such questions should never be grasped with intention to obtain a definitive answer. They will hover around the sensibilities of writers, readers and the illiterate who script their questions and answers in other ways. You can’t swat them away and you are not required to do so either. You can observe them, though.  

Lakdasa Wikkramasinha had obligations. He laid it out in a poem titled ‘The Poet.’

He is the one that, tossing a bomb into

The crowd, takes notes;


The one who, from an unseen distance


Levels on the tripod that black rifle


With sights that see as far as his soul

Trains and levels, manoeuvres for a clear sight


Of the speaker on the platform;


Waits, watching the clock, for the onset of a car


In the left corner of its back seat


Carrying the enemy

He explains why: [The poet], ‘unable to bear the circle of the seconds in his heart, is the bomb in the city, waiting to burst.’ That’s his ‘destiny’ or rather the task he set himself.

Both poets were acutely conscious of the world around them. We all are, more or less. Matthew Arnold in ‘Dover Beach’ wrote about the the sea, the tide, the long line of spray, the roar or pebbles, and it reminded him of Sophocles, who, hearing it ‘on the Aegean, ‘ read in it ‘the turbid ebb and flow of human misery.’

Moving to ‘the sea of faith’ Arnold is consumed by disenchantment and retreats or moves to a more assured if not less tumultuous sea; that of love. ‘Ah, love, let us be true to one another,’ he pleads almost in search of consolation because he believes he is being ‘swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.’

His obligation is to himself, his peace of mind. And escapist, one might say, but then again, that’s a choice no one can or should quarrel with. It is all about reading the world and self in terms of what James Baldwin called ‘system(s) of reality.’

No one has the authority to determine the dimensions of reality. The poet sets it up and reads that universe, be it as small as a grain of sand or as immeasurable as the Milky Way, as he/she will.  

And the reader will pass judgment. One might call Neruda an intruder, Lakdasa a trouble-maker and Arnold self-indulgent. Another might applaud Neruda and Lakdasa for being inspired to report and change, and Arnold for being more cognisant of ‘long time’ and eternal verities.

But…

Sometimes poetry is a cup of tea
black without sugar but not too red
a herbal concoction infusing antidotes
medicine that won’t hurt but may not heal;
and yet made curative by sentiment
the will to manufacture a smile
and a prayer to lessen weight.

Neruda, Lakdasa and Arnold are long gone. Their words remain and are wrapped in layers of meaning they were perhaps unaware of. They’ve been crucified and resurrected, vilified and praised, ignored and cherished. Much like all things: subjected to the dharma of the following four dualities: joy-sorrow, praise-blame, profit-loss, fame-oblivion. Their work: medicine that won’t hurt but may not heal.

We have to live with all that.