"Jejuri", by Arun Kolatkar
.
To patch up my sluggish memory and to keep in touch with the different languages I'm learning, I have decided to learn bits of poetry by heart.
Today was dedicated to English, but which poet to choose ? Keats, Plath, Eliot ? As I stood pondering in front of my wardrobe (which happens to be crammed with books), my eyes fell on a thin book by the Indian poet Arun Kolatkar : Jejuri.
This sequence of poems presents the persona's pilgrimage to the holy place of Jejuri, yet the persona is more a flaneur than a devotee, which makes for a unique vision of the temples.
One poem focuses on a door and is called..."The Door".
The definite article elevates the door, a usually prosaic and unnoticeable item, to the rank of a universally known object. Moreover, as the door of a temple is what separates the profane world outside and the divine space of the holy site, a tone of awe and devotion is called for.
As the reader can see, the grotesque and burlesque have superseded the expected religious tone : right from the first stanza, the imagery is grisly and comic. The prophet is "dangling" like a puppet on its strings, and he is "half brought down from the cross", as if people decided they didn't want to finish the job after all. The door, as a fallen prophet forsaken by his followers, is ridiculous. The vivid imagery is present throughout the poem and culminates with the "flayed man of muscles", and the final image of the pair of shorts.
Arun Kolatkar often has very stricking punch lines, or rather, punch images, and the one in "The Door" is one of my favorites in Jejuri.
To patch up my sluggish memory and to keep in touch with the different languages I'm learning, I have decided to learn bits of poetry by heart.
Today was dedicated to English, but which poet to choose ? Keats, Plath, Eliot ? As I stood pondering in front of my wardrobe (which happens to be crammed with books), my eyes fell on a thin book by the Indian poet Arun Kolatkar : Jejuri.
This sequence of poems presents the persona's pilgrimage to the holy place of Jejuri, yet the persona is more a flaneur than a devotee, which makes for a unique vision of the temples.
One poem focuses on a door and is called..."The Door".
The definite article elevates the door, a usually prosaic and unnoticeable item, to the rank of a universally known object. Moreover, as the door of a temple is what separates the profane world outside and the divine space of the holy site, a tone of awe and devotion is called for.
The Door
.
A prophet half brought down
from the cross.
A dangling martyr.
.
Since one hinge broke
the heavy medieval door
hangs on one hinge alone.
.
One corner drags in dust on the road.
The other knocks
against the high treshold.
.
Like a memory that gets only sharper
with the passage of time,
the grain stands out on the wood
.
as graphic in detail
as a flayed man of muscles who can not find
his way back to an anatomy book
.
and is leaning against
any old doorway to sober up
like the local drunk.
.
Hell with the hinge and damn the jamb.
The door would have walked out
long long ago
.
if it weren't for
that pair of shorts
left to dry upon its shoulders.
As the reader can see, the grotesque and burlesque have superseded the expected religious tone : right from the first stanza, the imagery is grisly and comic. The prophet is "dangling" like a puppet on its strings, and he is "half brought down from the cross", as if people decided they didn't want to finish the job after all. The door, as a fallen prophet forsaken by his followers, is ridiculous. The vivid imagery is present throughout the poem and culminates with the "flayed man of muscles", and the final image of the pair of shorts.
Arun Kolatkar often has very stricking punch lines, or rather, punch images, and the one in "The Door" is one of my favorites in Jejuri.
Efnisorð: poetry
posted by transparency @ 2:01 e.h.
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