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Exemplar of Poetic Excellence –Taming the Tides by Dilip Mohapatra |
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by Pankajam K |
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Taming The Tides –New and Selected Poems
Garbage Bin is an excellent poem that points fingers at our social apathy, the concluding stanza of which will prick at one’s conscience for long even after reading the book:
Poem titled ‘Reflections’ gives us different perceptions and shows us different faces of hunger, thirst, love and life itself, which implicitly makes us contemplative of the transitory nature of our life. (p.49,50)
‘Pay Back Time’ is a fine piece of writing with a social concern and prompts the readers to give back to the society, a commitment conveniently forgotten by many of us:
Mohapatra’s humour sense is at his best in poems like ‘Saying Cheese’ (p.72) and ‘Drawing the Line’ (p. 91), the former one on the lighter moments, while posing for photographs on various occasions and various phases of life, which all of us can readily relate to. The latter narrates the protagonist’s experiences in an air journey, which will make one laugh for a while:
‘Surrogate Mother’ is a women-centric subject, a sensitive poem about the feelings of a surrogate mother who has to give up the child grown in her womb immediately after its birth, on which the author has this to say:
‘Never Mind’ is a sensible poem coming from a higher level of matured worldly wisdom reminding us that nothing is permanent in this world and the poet reiterates that:
The perfectionist in Mohapatra peeps through the poem titled ‘Excellence’ and makes one follow suit. The poem has a footnote like this :
‘Dementia’ is a powerful poem on fading memories. It talks about the maimed, mutilated and mummified memories and travels through the life events of the speaker of the poem, that will force us to capture similar moments of ours, but at the same time it makes us sympathetic to the conditions of persons caught with dementia:
In the poem ‘Raped Woman’ Mohapatra puts forth his arguments against the society’s common allegations where the victim is further victimized and asserts a strong message to such insensitive souls:
‘Heavy Coffin’ is full of compassionate feelings for a fellow comrade who laid his life for the country as the protagonist carries his mortal remains, which will sure wet one’s eyes. The intensity of the feelings is to be felt first-hand by the readers and I may not quote from the poem here for the simple reason that it should not dilute the prospective readers’ anxiety and with a hope to kindle their curiosity. (p.142)
Poem ‘Timeless Flow’ is about the pollution of Ganga, the author’s musings on the holy river, having been declared as a ‘living being’. Men who make it choke when living wants to take a dip in its holy waters to wash off his sins and his final journey ends with his descendants performing his last rites letting his cadaver rot in the same sacred waters for his salvation. What a contrariety! Mohapatra pours his heart out in the following lines about this:
Mohapatra, being a retired navy veteran, no wonder in many of his poems, images like sea, tides, ship, shores, ripples et.al navigate on and off . His resilient poetic elucidations instantly tug at our conscience and travel with us for quite long. Taming the Tides is a fascinating kaleidoscope of poems on varied themes presenting before our eyes glistening images. I strongly recommend this book of poems to the poetry lovers and would suggest grabbing your copy for an exclusive experience of poetic feast. |
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30-Apr-2017 | ||
More by : Pankajam K | ||
Views: 848 Comments: 0 | ||
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