Volume 4 | Issue 2 | April - May
2010 |
Interview with Joneve
C P Aboobaker
C.P:- Why do you make enemies of intellectuals? There are pretty fine intellectuals who can state what is and what is not poetry. They say they make and unmake poets. So, why blame them not having read or even reading poetry?
Ans:- I expect to be enchanted with unique imagery, rhythms and perspectives, singly or in multiples, and by combinations of these elements. Poetry is distinctive, impactful, never trite or stale. Alexenander Pope said that the greatest crime against art is dullness.
C.P:- What do you believe is the role of the critic and criticism as a branch of literature? - Finally, what is your prediction on the future of poetry? Will poetry survive as a means of expression, as a creative faculty?
Ans:-When I approach a poem new to me, it is like opening the gate to a magic garden. I don't know what is behind the gate, but I expect to be enchanted. Poetry can create effects ordinary language cannot. It can pierce the heart, as the poet said. It has also been said that poetry makes one's hairs stand on end. The spirit is immortal, the body is not, and that is why we need poetry, to remind us of who we are. The truth of poetry cannot be proven in material ways. We know if it is poetry for us by the experience of spirit touched. We are more alive, bigger for the experience, and enchanted.
C.P:- - Can you point out a couple of poems to show that poetry would survive?
Ans:- Thank you for your profound point and question -- yes, it is by spirit that the poets and philosophers, past and present, who come to our attention touch us. This may begin in fact before we read their words, a kind of intuitive attraction manifesting. The poet William Butler Yeats compared contact with spirit and contact with the body in his poem about the wild old wicked man - he compares his poet's power with that of a young man infatuated: "I have words that can pierce the heart/What can he do but touch?"
Page:
C P Aboobaker - C.P. ABOOBACKER, editor of thanalonline, belongs to Calicut in Kerala. His interests include writing, publishing poems, essays, and many more literary things. Latest writing is about Channels and Globalizations. He is a retired professor of history.
e-mail: cpaboobacker@gmail.com