The Poet – Lakdasa Wikkramasinha
·
Lakdasa Wickkramasinha is a Sri Lankan bi-lingual
poet
·
A poet is someone who responds to what happens in
society.
·
Yet here, the poet is an activist who purifies
society.
·
First we see the poet as a rebel ‘tossing a bomb
into the crowd’.
·
And next he is a sniper waiting for his enemy –
probably a corrupt politician
·
Next the poet as a guerilla preparing for an ambush
in the jungle.
·
And at the end, he becomes a suicide bomber
·
Wickkramasingha overturns the traditional image of
the poet as a commentator
·
His involvement in the society is not just limited
to ideological support.
·
He needs to have an active participation.
Theme
·
The role of the poet
Techniques
·
Free verse
·
Series of visual images – poet
throwing a bomb, poet as a sniper taking aim, poet as a guerrilla lying in
ambush, poet as a suicide bomber
·
Symbols: pen, gun – poetry of
the socio-politically conscious poet
Birds, Beasts, and Relatives – Angel de Silva (Richard
de Siva)
·
The poet returns to a sanctuary
after a long time
·
He says that “For once you’ve
seen Man on the kill/ The spotted hunter fails the thrill”
·
Man is a more fearsome hunter
than even the leopard
·
The prey of the Man are men of
other classes and races
·
In addition man can change his
spot or camouflage himself and avoid detection
Theme
·
Man’s violence towards his
fellow man
Techniques
·
The metaphor of the hunt – man
hunting his fellow human beings
·
Conversational tone – “So let
us exercise what arts”
·
Irony – Best quarry for Mankind
is Man
At What Dark Point – Anne Ranasinghe
·
The poem is about the
unpredictability of violence
·
The poet sees a stranger making
a rope and finds him sinister
·
She sees “a future purpose of
evilness” in the man and the rope
·
She does not find comfort in
poetry, music, or philosophy
·
She visualizes a terrible
future in which small children would be burnt to death as in the time of Nazi
Germany
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