KOCHI: In Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of the Green Gables, Anne, a freckled, red-haired orphan girl adopted by a sister-brother duo in a remote Canadian locality in the mid-19th century, finds solace in The Lady of the Shallot, Lord Tennyson’s poem on Elaine, the tragical heroine of Arthurian legends. The 11-year-old uses this poem among many other works of art to black out the grimness that filled the initial years of her childhood confined to a dingy orphanage where she faced frigid life situations that would have broken what she calls her ‘kindred spirit’.
Power of erasure
The silent yet stoic power of poetry to help people black out their personal lows is well-known and probably is the logic behind Blackout Poetry, a genre that is a competitive trend now in Kerala among young friends of verses. The poetry involves blacking out certain words from the original text sourced from any literature and finding new poetic perspectives in the jigsaw left.
Dr Nithya Mariam John, assistant professor at BCM College, Kottayam, whose work Seven Days of Mourning won her a nomination for the 2022 Pushcart Prize, finds the genre an interesting way to discover the poet within. She feels those finding fun in designing would love blackout. “I like experimenting with colours using sketches that fit the content and form.” Nithya switches to blackout when she feels overwhelmed with ordinary patterns of writing.
In a world and times when convergence is key, poetry merging with other forms of art to make new brands of creative expression cannot be seen as odd. Such collaborations evolve a linear stream of work to a magnanimous whole that encompasses varied aspects of existence.
Another example of such collaborations is Poetry Painting, says Nithya. She teamed up with her painter-friend and Guinness record-holding artist Devi Sree to merge poetry and painting. Their individual works move in tandem to portray abandonment and hope in seasons. Music is also employed alongside, equipping the painting to translate the insights of the verses into the canvas. “Combining artistic genres is important nowadays because humans can express themselves in different ways,” Nithya says.
Beyond words
The highlight of such a convergence is different art forms could be used with verses to make new forms of poetry. When combined with sculptures and sound, the genre is termed Installation Poetry, a multi-dimensional trend, especially after S Kalesh’s Shabdamahasamudram collection won the Kerala Sahithya Akadami’s Kanakashree Award.
The poet and journalist from Kunnamthanam, near Thiruvalla, says the idea was a fresh way to overcome the weariness of conventional poetry. “I was inspired by the fact that poetry can be an experimental medium conveyed to even beyond the readers.”
Shabdamahasamudram, gave equal importance to dimensions of poetry, sculpture, and sound as it showed a man lying down with one ear torn apart. He was choosing to ignore the noise and hear instead the murmur of the sea waves, the subdued sound accompanying the stride of the repressed, and other sounds of nature that we tend to ignore.
Presenting an experience with layered meaning and artistic dimensions, Kalesh wanted people to understand the small and the weak through this work of art. When it was staged at Durbar Hall, Kochi, in 2015, he remembers how some people came to interpret and cherish the beauty and meaning of the sculpture and others used to stand still with eyes closed as though to listen to the poetry and the slow sounds.
“Poetry is like water. It can flow into any medium and can coexist with elegant compatibility. This led me towards installation poetry,” says Kalesh, who also dabbles in Malayalam narrative poetry winning the Asan Young Poet Award 2023 for his collection Attakari.
“Each poet has a different perspective and style. Also, it is important to remain aware of the developments in poetry, art, and changes in technology.”
To the world of social media
The future in its varied realms must be perceived for poetry to evolve and encompass, Kalesh claims. Such a poetic medley, to match the mood of the Gen-Zs, is Insta Poetry found rampantly indulged in on social media platforms. A genre made famous by Canadian poet Rupi Kaur. The style is marked by its casual language and ideas. Most social media users take to Insta poetry to share their emotions.
Zeenat Khan, a 21-year-old poet and editor, however, has mixed views on the trend being a form of poetry. “It is silly to think of Insta poetry as a homogenous group of writing. Writing, even of the same person, cannot be similar. Then, when it emerges from different ends of the world, with distinct experience, training, and sensibility, it cannot be unified or aesthetic.” Though a trend, she finds it exhausting.
Zeenat’s work Quilt, is a medley style that could be best termed Graphical Poetry combining poetry, images and design. “Like everyone, I have sets of memories for a word or event. Quilt-making has been a common practice in the courtyard of my village. A quilt cannot be made without the friendship of hands that sew it and without the camaraderie of the clothes that these hands arrange. To express this, writing was not enough. Hence, Quilt was contained as a visual poem. However, I was able to do so confidently only because I have been inspired by the possibilities of visual poems in the works of Tarik Dobbs, Sarah Ghazal Ali, and other writers. There were many quilts in my head like crumpled clothes waiting to be stretched and sewn,” she says.
The new trends in poetry are most followed by the young, unlike the usual feeling that poetry is a road less taken by youngsters. The purpose for which the young take up poetry varies. Zeenat now wants to experiment with diaries or art journals with quotes and zines. Others could try poetry to curate pages, to get published, to seek a platform for expressions, etc.
Spoken words
Poetry is not alien to today’s youth. It has found new footing by the way of Slam Poetry, which brings together verses and the spoken word in a profound, and competitive way to enthrall the audience.
Juney Thomas, writer and poet from Kochi, chose to do slam poetry and her collection Days Of Indigo was published almost a year ago. Juney, who used to write poetry from a young age, was fond of theatre and music with deep lyrics. But what overwhelmed her was the magic that the works of slam poets like Neil Hilborn and Lang Leav could create. She also realised the potential of the genre to connect to people deeply as she performed at an event, leading her more towards slam poetry.
“The best thing about doing slam is getting on stage in front of a room full of people, to look them in the eyes, seeing the words touch them, and creating magic,” Juney says. Her recent experiments with poetry include collaborating with musicians to create custom music for her works. She also brings in Malayalam and Hindi to English poetry.
Much like slam poetry, Haibun, too works with words. The style brings elements of journal writing and autobiographical incidents to Haiku, a Japanese traditional three-line poetry format. The form has a detached perspective that helps a poet to be a witness rather than be emotionally involved, says Shobana Kumar, poet and social worker from Coimbatore, who was drawn to Haibun in 2014. Her collection A Sky Full of Bucket Lists won two international awards — the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award by The Haiku Foundation, USA, and the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize, 2021-2022.
Haibun merges the elegance of haiku with prose or journal, creating a hint of significance that can be more sensed than seen or heard. There is a humility of both emotions and words, a trait which Shobana feels is an essential quality. “My childhood was spent in the Nilgiris, surrounded by a faultlessly blue sky, endless stretches of hills, and gentle people,” Shobhana says, as a background to her work. “Attention to craft and discipline, an ephemeral sense of success, if at all, are other traits needed,” she feels.
How poetry has transformed shows its evolution is as effervescent as time itself. “We are all made of different pieces of influences. Much like avial. To express all those sides, we need to break expectations and experiment with blending forms, structures, languages,” Juney says. “After all, poetry can merge flawlessly with all arts because art is poetry.”