The return of the native : an appreciation of Basil Fernando’s poems –Part VI

By K. G. Sankara Pillai

(October 23, Kerala, Sri Lanka Guardian)There is no doubt Basil Fernando’s poetry is the poetry of an ardent activist. Sometimes a poem of his is born in between two Urgent Appeals to the heads of states or courts against atrocities, custodial torture, and denial of justice.

A spontaneous blend of memory with history becomes a blend of the personal with the social, which is a recurring pattern he uses to maintain the aesthetic balance between near and far, simple and complex, figurative and abstract, expressive and narrative.

There is no doubt Basil Fernando’s poetry is the poetry of an ardent activist. Sometimes a poem of his is born in between two Urgent Appeals to the heads of states or courts against atrocities, custodial torture, and denial of justice.

A spontaneous blend of memory with history becomes a blend of the personal with the social, which is a recurring pattern he uses to maintain the aesthetic balance between near and far, simple and complex, figurative and abstract, expressive and narrative.

Basil’s poetry breathes justice. The soul of its vision, the tone of its historic urge and the core of its spiritual energy is justice. The voice of a poet of justice with a new democratic vision of justice fills the vast space of real social experience. Its poetics has profound roots in the poetics of twentieth century political poetry.

Concluded....

Previous Parts:Part One/ Part Two/ Part Three/ Part Four/Part Five

Annexure :Here is what M.I. Kuruwilla wrote about Basil Fernando's poems published in 1971- his first collection.

A New Era to Emerge: Basil Fernando

M.I. Kuruwilla – Navasilu 1976

If one were to judge Basil Fernando's poems by the last poem in his collection of poems, which provides the title as well – A New Era to Emerge – one is apt to be disappointed. However, what one should remember is that Basil Fernando writes best not when he looks idealistically into the future speaking of the New Man or the New Era to Emerge but when he contemplates the present, the immediate reality. So there are a few poems tainted by idealistic, propagandist fervour and some which are rather slight in content. If we exclude these, the achievement of Fernando is still remarkable.

Fernando's poems are created out the experiences of local living – mostly in the rural countryside. Fernando is very much part of that countryside. He belongs to it, although he observes the rural scene without idealization, without sentimentality. It is a story of rural destitution, the stark poverty of the countryside movingly presented. His treatment of the rural theme is quite authentic and I dare say we haven't had such a treatment of such an important theme before. It is unique. See how feelingly he writes about the village girls immolated by the new monster who has appeared on the rural scene – a Weaving Mill – the first poem in this collection.

Fernando is at his best when he deals with the present not directly but indirectly, that is symbolically. What I consider the four best poems in this collection are all in the symbolic mode – Age Four Revisited, Mosquito, Its Beloved Awaiting and Tying the Lightning. It is not difficult to see that the precariousness of the life of the mosquito has its own parallel in the world of man:

Mosquito resting on the wall
Awaiting digestion
Contemplated its own fate
Sadly….

Age Four Revisited, making use of the symbol of the butterfly, is a serious commentary of the self-centred egotism on its own destructiveness. Perhaps one of the finest poems in this collection is Its Beloved Awaiting with the rive motif:

As I listened
To the thick darkness
Of the night
Disturbed by the casual converse
Of night birds
I heard the thin river
Moving on slow
On some secret purpose
Deeply hidden within it
Rather hostile to me
Complaining.
Of my unwanted intrusion
Of my insensitive judgement
Against its pain-ridden
Long enduring love
In the thick darkness
Its beloved awaiting.

Within a small selection of poems the range achieved is remarkable – a range not only of themes but of tome, Fernando is not only a master of controlled pathos, he can be witty and satirical too. So he can say in a poem on The Philatelic Bureau:

Wild flowers, sea fish
Painted dolls on walls
Enough friend this kidding
Curse be to all.

And in one of his poems he relates a strange dream of his spitting on the faces of all he meets – only to meet someone later who actually spits on him and passes by. There is the exalted emotion of love in the poem The Creation of the World when the poet in love can indulge in the fancy that he created the world. This may be contrasted with the terrible feeling of bitterness of the 'lost life' expressed against the background of a graveyard. A passing mood of contentment like that of a Zen devotee is capture in Encounter – encounter with his own self:

I shook hands with myself
Was received in sheer delight

We viewed the world together
Agreed I was right

I looked in and me looked out
The world was full of light.

The major problem confronting the poets whose mother tongue is not English is the language itself. It is easy for a Sri Lankan or Indian poet to slip into an academic literary affecting Eliot and Auden, Stevens and Pound. In fact, this kind of academic approach to the writing of poetry bred in the Universities and sponsored by prestigious literary journals is the besetting vice in the writing of English poetry today. I am told that Basil Fernando was Sinhala educated and learnt English on his own. If I were to parody one of his poems he would have wanted on this:

If there be a god
Let him grant me
A single request
To a good man's heart
Let me be given access
To be tutored
Into good speech.

Fernando has tutored himself into good English, into a kind oflanguage that is simple, natural, concrete and spontaneous. He can use the spoken language with absolute mastery and with deft rearrangement and changes obtain fine evocative effects. Consider, for example, the following lines from his poem Tying the Lightning:

Let this lightning
So beautiful when dancing
Dance from a distance
To the sky stage.
Let it itself confine
And not disturb
The dance of life.

I feel that among those writing English poetry in Sri Lanka Basil Fernando is unique in many respects. In fact, although his output may be small, in range and depth he could stand his own ground when compared with poets writing in a more vital tradition that ours – for example the African poets.

I should not fail to mention that the reproduction on the cover of a painting by one of our young artists expresses fully the spirit of this collection – the spirit of anguish, of suffering.

-Sri Lanka Guardian