DRENCHING MEMORY - A REVIEW OF MEMORY RAIN

LATHAPREMSAKHYA

Calicut: Monsoon Editions, 2008.

Pages 79 Price Rs. 150/-

The sixty odd poems that make the collection, Memory Rain are delightful to read and reflect the poet's personality_in I!!greways than one. Written as the poet says for her 'personal delight' they are of special moments in life, which make life livable and sweet. ~emory and nostalgia are the golden skeins that hold the poems together. Predictably the poems begin with the memory of childhood games that are played in the golden years of childhood around the homestead. The first poem thus unwinds 'the spool of yearning' that leads one through the twenty year span during which the poet had jotted the lines and which she had perhaps revised many times.

Spaces are important to the poet as time is for she has the 'attic of the soul' to dump her not so sweet memories. The poems themselves have given the poet the 'space to exist'. This age old yearning of the woman writer that the poet expresses finds an echo in some of the poems in the collection. For example, the poem 'Wild Terrain' talks of the unmapped wOrld of the woman that surprises one at every turn and which is 'unpredictable'. The poem ends with woman being equated to a mystery that has not (read will not) be unraveled.

The spell of love, both love of nature and the flush of first love is the magic that predominates in the collection. There are two poems of the same name entitled 'Magic Spell' in page 16 and page 53. If the first poem speaks of the magic spell of love when the lovers literally hold their breath and dare not shatter the magic spell of love, the second one is undoubtedly of the spell that natural beauty can cast on one. The shining sapphire like crystal pool that the poet finds ensconces in a world that is pure magic.

Love is the theme of many poems. The first flush of love is described as 'light in my heart' and 'flight in my steps' (17). The love of the mature woman is equated to 'a blanket spreading warmth to all under it'(28). Loss of love may leave the poet shattered like 'shards of a broken pot' (38) .Through the varying shades of love one is however conscious of the poet's nostalgic yearning for youthful love in the prime of its power that manifests itself as a 'wailing banshee' (40) and a quest for the 'gentle shower of love' (41). The echo of the red rose of love that haunt the valleys in the dead season and the image of the chasm of life that is devoid of vitalizing showers are counter pointed by the images of the vital and crimson rose that is like life giving blood and the summer showers that refresh the hot and dusty earth. Another asp~~ of love that the poet explores is motherly love that surface in poems like "Tiny World', "My Child', 'Comeraderie', 'Girl' and 'Corina' that is contained in five consecutive pages from 19 to 23. The poem 'Dream Child' talks of the sorrow on the loss of a child who is paradoxically also a part of the poet's self.

Nature holds sway in poems like 'Swirling Current' (31) which allows the poet to partake in 'nature's daily celebration' and 'Evening Sky' (33) in which the poet uses the cloud to ride to fancy's abode. Other poems celebrating nature and depicting her various moods abound in the collection. 'The Crown of Creation' (35) and 'The Winged Offenders' (36) depict the darker side of life revealed as the poet contemplates the crown of creation who alone in the gay and wonderful world are 'flurried and harried'. The poem entitled 'Tree' (56) depicts the tree as the paradigm of warring humanity. The winged offenders that rape the flower without dreaming that their 'natural act' can kill life is the reverse of the image of the caressing sunbeam that sweeps the stream into his golden arms in the poem 'The Rill' (55). Poems like 'Notes of Joy' (50) "Little Mynah' (51) and 'Minnows' (52) share the joys of the winged creatures that live and enjoy the present moment. 'The Uncanny Singer' (49) is of the bird whose cry portends death and leads the reader directly to poems like 'Magic in the Air' (72) and 'Earth Mother'(74) which can be read together as poems that spell the doom of earth. The poet sheds tears for the reprieve of the herons and the water fowls that have migrated to fresher and safer fields. She knows that like Cassandra her words may not be noticed by those deafened by the 'roar of materialistic living'.

Though nostalgia and memory colour all the poems in the collection, it is perhaps the theme as well in three poems entitled 'Memory', 'Reminiscence' and 'Aria'. Memory in the first poem is the painful marking left by the sea on the shore. Reminiscence in the poem of the same name is of wistful images that give the poet to carry on the business of life. The last poem in the collection, 'Aria' is a requiem that is informed in large measure by memory for it is of a friend who is no more and who is linked in the mind of the poet to a haunting song to recapture which the poet crashes through the labyrinth of the mind.

Dreams, hopes, thoughts, friendship, old age, sorrow faith and even natural disasters are themes that the poet touches on. 'Paattie' and 'Amma' are undoubtedly the persons who have influenced and inspired the poet while her husband and daughter prove to be her solace and salvation. The romantic rather than the modernistic sensibility is evident in the collection. Reading the poems proves to be akin to being drenched in refreshing rain of memories.

-HemaNairR

Nature at my Doorstep -- A Review

                                                By

                                                                                Dr.Mariam Kuruvilla Joseph

                                                                                          Former Principal and Head,

                                                                                               Dept of English,

                                                                                                   Mar Thoma College for Women,

                                                                                                         Perumbavoor

      Nature at my Doorstep by Latha Prem Sakhya is a beautifully conceived text consisting of poems, reflections and paintings, wherein the poet meanders down memory lane on the wings of imagination, all the while urging the readers to listen to and experience the magic in the pleadings of her  “ Words squeezed out of ecstasy and

agony-”

            The poet in general is a very sensitive being.  She/he serves as the alter-ego, the conscience keeper of the world.  It is difficult for others to understand this troubled sensibility of the poet which is often misjudged for touchiness and timidity. The same is the case with Latha Prem.  That is why the poet is barged with questions such as:

                        Why are you so crazy?

                   Matters negligible to others

                      Trouble and torment you

              What makes you so sensitive, lassie,

            To others’ as well as your problems?

Here we see how the artist becomes a seer willfully bearing the burdens of others, and like the proverbial sacrificial lamb taking upon herself the ‘unkind actions’ and ‘rude words’ which ‘slash and prick’ her inner being, only to make her ‘to hasten / To find solace in the inner den.’ And poetry becomes both an effective emotional outlet as well as a clarion call to fellow humans to stop awhile and not just sympathize but to empathize with the lonely, the weak and the suffering.  In the poems silence and pauses, vocation and contemplation intermingle not as a retreat from the world but as an intense, passionate and creative engagement with it.

            The writings and paintings reveal the poet/artist to be a person who finds more fulfillment and joy in writing/painting for herself than in writing/painting for others.     

            We often come across the writer as a person whose poetic sensibility is traumatized by the agonizing loneliness of the suffering people around her and often undergoes a lot of vicarious suffering hoping and praying that some kind of relief and redemption be restored to these battered souls.  She can’t help wondering why the innumerable adolescents who committed suicide couldn’t find some hand to support them and pull them out of the turbulent waters.

                                    Was there no positive

                                Spark, a speck, a flicker,

                         To keep you going, my child?

The same empathy is shown towards the stray, puppies, the owl by night; the snake robbed of his fangs and teeth; and the lonely sufferer in Black  Knight.  Despite the agony and the pain ensconced in many of the poems, there is also a marvelous peace cascading all through the pages of the collection.  The diction is an unpretentious bouquet of highly suggestive words which encourage private, intimate and secret conversation between the readers and the writer.

             Where shall we go? and Shaddock are powerful requiems to the destruction of earth and its flora and fauna by uncaring and over exploititative human beings to satisfy their material instincts and longings.  The poems and the other writings advocate the freedom of speech, and bring out the idea that  the right to live is the birth right of every people as well as every other created being as we see in poems like  To Irom Shormila and To Live Freely, The Trapped Bird, Wild Woman  and many others. So we can say that freedom becomes a leitmotif in the writings of Latha Prem.

            The poet is a fellow being who shares her space on earth with the flora and fauna and the marginalized people. They are all under the benevolent care of a loving God.  The book unfolds an unconventional ‘love story’ pure and complicated among the writer, the rest of creation and God.  It deals with private realities, through the magic of imagination, memory and the special-ness of good friendships.  The verses along with the memoirs and the paintings will never cease to make us kind and happy and they fill us with delight while at the same time they provoke us to deep speculation and contemplation. They are refreshingly original, beautiful and tender.

            The work bears a Keatsian sensuousness as in:

                            When the golden sunbeams

                        Snake through the morning mist,

                  When the tender breeze kisses the flowers,

            Awakening them to bloom and dance

It is interesting to note how the various senses are at play when the reader tries to grasp the rich imagery, similes and metaphors used. Euphemistic twists to feared aspects of life make them less ostensible, and almost to the point of being favoured alternatives.  The much feared’Death’ once conceived  as ‘a grim relentless being’ becomes a much welcome “Black Knight” – a gallant, chivalrous, kind and merciful deliverer and hero who steers the ailing, tired and lonely soul towards eternity where freedom and comfort shall be its portion.

            The poems and the reflections are seemingly simple, yet very dense and layered.  Latha’s writings as do her paintings connect the reader to an immediacy in their simple elegance, richness of colour, texture and imagery.  The diversity of her canvas are all reflections on life experiences and they also address ecological concerns, environmental problems, child abuse, loss of human life, loss of love between people.  The small and the everyday commonplace experiences are celebrated.  But the whole work bears testimony to the protective mantle of God who is the constant companion of the tired and weary souls through thick and thin. This simple belief in the benevolence of a mighty omnipresence is suggestive of the robust optimism of Browning.

            The book shows how poetry becomes a process of recovery and constant realignment to the poet who looks on her writings/paintings as a continuous dialogue with her own inner self—a discovery of oneself.

            The book is a good example to show how the varied vital energies get to play when the boundaries of literary and artistic genres are pushed to give birth to a wholesome, multifaceted work. It is postmodern in form but quite romantic in content and sentiment. 

            The book surely makes some good, wholesome, uplifting reading.