Sunday, October 28, 2007

SECOND HAND POETS

One can find a lots of poets moving around on net. sites like blogger and orkut galore with budding poets. if poem writing was an industry one could easily predict its healthy future. the horizon of metaphors is ever extending and the beauty of the moon and the strenght of the sun still find expression on paper. lines which r put to the rythm of the rhyme and orderliness of the stanzas are still on witness all over. love has not lost way either, reflecting prominence. so do inspiration and lament. Inspite of this one thing keeps popping up in the mind when i read these poems and when i am gripped by that thought the sheer dust of joy of the poem quicky rubs of to display its embedded mediocricity.

How many ppl do u think have realy seen the moon with the eyes of a poet or for that matter seen the flowers with the eyes of a lover. the winds have been poems offcial wanderer and a womans eyes a poet foremost love. but in the present scenario do we realy make these metaphorical images after seeing them or do we see these forms of nature already knowing their image ie : if i had a woman in my life (still searching for one) will i realy see her beautiful eyes without any prejudice judging them only by their sheer beauty? i would say no. what will actualy happen is that i already have it in my mind that eyes of a woman or for that matter her lips are a thing of appraisal and beauty and with these borrowed thoughts i may pen down a poem for my love by the right selection of words. similar is my opinion when i read the modern poets praising nature. the ideas seem to be borrowed. the moon ,the sun, the spring, the trees, the river we all know how to see them in the context of a poem. well one may ask what is wrong in this? ...yes nothing except that our poems then become second hand.

Second hand things can work wonders but they are always less beautiful and more cheaper than new and original ones. thus, ideas new and original are pretty difficult to get hold of and so the new poet perfers to stick to second hand ideas and images.but then what is compromised ? ..its the beauty of the poem itself. one does not realise and keeps on penning loads of poems in his blog or website probably feeling a sense of satisfaction and appeasement. fortunately for them one can find a lot of admirers for their creations who seem to think that their poems are absolutely 'fantastic' and 'beautifuly craved' . but alas someone needs to notify them of the truth !

But these dark clouds of mediocricity do have silver linings. one can always find ppl who write differently and their imagination is their own, not borrowed frm someone. they may not stand separate from the above mentioned breed during their lifetime but when the obituaries of the poets of a generation will be written things will get as clear as a crystal. but for now lets cherish our second hand masters. well i just became a narcissist :)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Siddhartha said...

well why keep draggig the moon out always in the poem when it has already been the protagonist for many love poems. i agree that it is not possible to see the moon in the same way as the first man saw it but it would be the creativity of the first man to see the moon in a different way..i mean it is possible that in his times something else was playing the role in the poems that the moon plays today and he could imagine a new and beautiful metaphor quite different. i just wish to say that the poets of today, if they could stop clinging to existing thoughts and concepts and come up with original ones with things around them, poem reading cld be much more a delight..take for tht matter neruda and his metaphors, completely original and striking.. i know tht neruda can be only one but still and effort in such direction will be appreciated in rather than reading those ghisa pita types...

as for the postman its also one of my fav movies and his act of writing the poem touched me ..but i would just ask whether u wld think the same thing if made to read the poem without knowing ane story behind it, just on the basis of wht u read, without ane prejudice ...i mean it is not the poem but the man and the story behind him tht play a part in creating the feeling....and who knows the poem might still be realy original and beautiful...but for tht we wld need to it :)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
HOCUS POCUS said...

saala tum logon ka baat khali 'esoteric-esoteric' lag raha hai..kahan uski aankhein aur ye dry intellectualism..kahan chaand ka beauty aur ye kaunsa sahi-galat..achha poetry-bura poetry..second hand-first hand...

Accha hai ki tum socha ye sab daaru..lekin baat simple hai yaar..jaroori nahi ki mujhe koi cheez ka notion hai pehle se and after seeing something i m using it as a metaphor..may be prejudiced ..but sometimes seeing something reminds u of somethingelse (say metaphor)spontaneously...i have no virtue or vengeance to seek for the originality of my use of some word...thing is logon ka copy karna bhi bura nahi hai..in the creative world..chaand pe kisi ka copy right nahi hai ki main use karne lagunga to mujhe second hand poet bologe tum... :P

anyways...dimaag ka dahi karte raho..achha lagta hai ..misti dahi bhalo..khub bhalo.. :D

Kalu said...

nice comment ... beautiful ....

1st) I appreciate comments, whoever may be the commentator what matters is what he comments and if anyone wants to prove those comments wrong he/she shouldn't get judgmental about the commentator.

2nd) the beauty of poems is that they rhyme (technically according to definitions)

3rd)as a second hand poet myself i tend to believe and also i have hard core faith in the belief that somethings can only be said in poems than proses ... it is easier to sell your emotions in camouflaged articles called poems ...
4th)poems hides the hypocrite in every person

5th)the real technique of a second hander is to make you believe that you are him/her ... so that if u fall in love with the second hander u will be a narcissist and if u hate them then u will kill yourself ...

6th)ask me for some of my poems ... actually i have written "the literal sense 2nd hand poetry" ie. had translated some works of haribans rai bachhan ... and also some original ones too ... the point is not that i am defending myself as a amateur poet but i am agreeing to u that i am a second hander ... just that i would be glad if u can find my 2nd hand points in my poems ...

:)

NICE OBSERVATIONS DUDE ...