An article                                                                                              20, Padmini Thottam,

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World of Dazzling Short Verses

By

Aju Mukhopadhyay

Though there is no clear definition of short poem, which may perhaps extend to a few pages, longer poems are usually called long poems. Short poems of two to four lines usually dazzle like flash lights. Examples of such creations are available aplenty in world literature. Ancients used very short poems to express profound wisdom. Moderns too are fond of such short and lovely poems.

     The world of epics is not compatible with the present day mood of the connoisseurs. The restive mind of the modern man can neither conceive nor relish the epics though the world is moving with its ever increasing mass of living beings. Sometimes poets of later ages used to contribute their might to swell the body of such epics as a national heritage, though diminishing their quality. The original length of Mahabharata, between 24000 to little over 26000 slokas, swelled to more than one lac slokas. Epics, the literary history of civilizations, like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are no longer produced.   The present age is the age of short poems of various genres like Sonnet, Rubaiyat, Ghazal, Haiku, Zen, Tanka poem, quatrains, couplets, other rhymed and prose poems.

     Epic poems were written from time to time but not the epics of the lore. Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri, written in the last century, spanning beyond 24000 lines, is a spiritual epic of a different genre.

     Though there is no clear definition of short poems, which may perhaps extend to a few pages, longer poems are usually called long poems. I want to restrict my discussion to really very short poems of two to four lines usually. Examples of such creations are available aplenty in world literature. Ancients used very short poems too, to express profound wisdom.

     The mandalas in the Vedas, the oldest available scriptures in the world, consist of suktas or hymns of two lines, as heard by the Rishis. Book of Psalms in the Bible consist of psalms of three or four lines each. So are the revelations of the prophet in the Quran made in few short lines. Such things, though spiritual in their origin, have been categorized as religious literature.

     We find beautiful short verses, a little later in Upanishads, two chapters of which are given below.

All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man’s possession (Isha-1).

By whom missioned falls the mind shot to its mark? By whom yoked moves the first life-breath forward on its paths? By whom impelled is this word that men speak? What god set eye and ear to their workings (Kena-2)?

     Japan occupies a conspicuous place in the history of such poems with treasures of Haiku, Zen, Tanka born out of Zen and other meditations of Buddhist lineage.  The spiritual Gurus in China too sometimes expressed in such manners.

     Of the four types of Japanese short verse forms, Haiku, Ten, Tanka and Sitigotyo, first three are very short verses and among them Haiku is the most popular. Both Haiku and Zen are three lined poems. Whereas in original Japanese Haiku has 5-7-5 beats, rather than syllables, it is being written in 5-7-5 syllables in English language by many. They hold the view that it is nearest to the original verse form and carries much of the spirit of Haiku in most cases. Some hold the opinion that it may be of two shorter lines with a longer line between them but a strict 5-7-5 syllables are not required. Haiku is usually a poem of nature, unusual revealing of some truth or a flash of recognition but light in its footsteps.

     Couplets written by Tiruvalluvar in Tirukkural in the first century C.E. on ethics in Tamil language are based on kural metres, like-

Self control places one among the gods; lack of it leads one to the darkness of hell.

(N0. 121)

     A discussion about short poems is bound to come round Sufi poems of the medieval age. For Arabic and Persian, principal poetic forms were four; Qasida (ode), Ghazal (lyric), Rubai ( (quatrain) and Masnavi (epic). Of the four Rubai became famous for its expression of brief mystical insights. The language was often direct and simple but paradoxical. In eleventh and twelfth centuries Persian quatrain became a standard mode of expression to clinch a point in Sufi literature like,

‘Last night my idol placed his hand upon my breast,

he seized me hard and put a slave-ring in my ear.

I said, “My beloved, I am crying from your love!”

He pressed his lips on mine and silenced me.’

(As quoted in The Shambala Guide to Sufism by Carl N. Ernst. Shambala, 2000. p.157)

     Many of the Arabian and Persian Sufi poetry drew upon the traditional themes of love and wine but the context and interpretation made them Sufi mystical poems. Many of the court poets of Arabia and Persia, who wrote secular poems, wrote Sufi poems which became a fashion. Arabian Hallaj and Persian Hafiz were the best examples.

     Rubai was written not only in those two countries but in other countries where Muslims lived, like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa, Turkey and others. Many times subjects and ideas in such poems were mixed with symbols and legends of other religions, like Magi or Zoroastrian priests merged into tavern keepers and represented Sufi masters. Couplets are found about infant Krishna (Bal Krishna) in awadhi dialect (Of Hindi language) which are interpreted as Sufi poetry. Many Sufi poems, as in Rumi and Hafiz are multilingual and multicultural. Many such poems are written in Urdu, a languagew born out of Hindi and Arabic. There is hardly any difference in form and theme between court poetry and Sufi poetry in Turkish, as in Arabic and Persian though tekke was generally considered different from divani or court poetry in Turkish.

     It was perfectly possible to write poetry in Sufi style without being a practicing mystic. Many peots of the medieval period loaded their poems in Sufi imagery though few of them had serious connections with Sufi order. But Rumi, the author of the largest corpus of lyrical poetry in Persian literature (40000 verses, though often partly repeated) and the mystical epic of 25000 verses- Masnavi, was a Sufi mystic. His poems are part of the Sufi music.

     Sufi poetry, scholars expounded, was not only intimate utterances of the individuals who had deep acquaintances with their subjects but also complex, deliberately composed literature with elaborate rules of rhymes and metres. There were large numbers of Sufi poets in the middle ages.

     Mention must be made of the beautiful Rubaiyat, consisting of series of rubai or quatrains, by the famous Persian poet, Umar (Omar) Khayyam of the 11^th century though he was not a Sufi.

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears

Today of past Regrets and future Fears-

Tomorrow? - Why, Tomorrow I may be

Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand years.

     In Rumi we get the spiritual flame.

Do you think I know what I’m doing?

That for one breath or half-breath, I belong to myself?

As much as a pen knows what it’s writing,

Or the ball can guess where it’s going next.

     Let us quote a couplet from the ever romantic, bibulous Hafez.

If Hafez’s tears do not move you,

Then why has your heart not yet turned to stone?

     Nineteenth century French poets, Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud wrote few such short poems.

     Urdu Sher of Mirza Ghalib, in couplets, is very famous.

Life would have passed as it were

But the remembrance of your way has brought me here.

     We find Indian vachanas or pravachanas, apothegms, aphorisms or sayings credited to someone like Khana in Bengal or just as they are in short v erses, carried by folk memory. They are sometimes in the form of couplets. Sometimes they look like riddles, but are still valued.

    Poet Rabindranath Tagore also included some couplets and quatrains in the vast body of his lyrical and other poems. In 1905 he wrote a few poems in Japanese forms. Some of the short poems he wrote while sailing back from Liverpool to homeland in 1912-13. Some he wrote in Japan in 1916. Some such poems were written in English as in Fireflies and Stray Birds, besides others in Bengali. The author in his Fireflies wrote, ‘Fireflies had their origin in China and Japan where thoughts were very often claimed from me, in my handwriting on fans and pieces of silk.’ (The Macmillan Company, New York; 1928)

     Among the books of such verses in Bengali, Kanika was published in 1899 and Lekhan in 1927. Sphulinga was written between1912 and 1916.  A couplet from Kanika is given as example.

Ungrateful

The echo always taunts the sound

Lest it may be revealed that it’s indebted to sound.

     We may site another beautiful couplet from Lekhan

The shadow keeps in its breast the memory of light

Picture we call it. (No.41)

     Much after Tagore’s creations of such verses, when Nishikanta Roy  Chowdhury or poet and painter Nishikanta, brought up in Shantiniketan under the guidance of Tagore and other teachers, took to writing such  verses at the young age of about 21 years, under the general title, Tukri, Tagore took much interest in them and corrected some of them almost beyond recognition but regretted later for that in a letter to poet Buddhadev Bose in 1940.  Such poems were published in Bichitra, a Bengali monthly, under the guidance of Tagore in about 1931.  Some of the poems were kept intact. A three line poem from Tukri, as remained unchanged, is reproduced below.

It is better to keep her in my mind

Keep in my dreamland fair

In my thatched house where else to give her share?

     Kunjunni, a Malayalam poet recently expired, is famous for his kunjunnikkavithakal, a book of very short verses; couplet, tercet or quatrain, rhymed or unrhymed. He wrote stories and other write ups, mainly for the children, but he is popular for his witty, ironic and humorous short lines. Sometimes they carry profound meanings. He was a man of quite short height, 1.5 metres but he writes,

That I am short

I know I’m tall.

     A few more of his verses may be cited for example.

The sky shouts at times;

The sea calms at times.

 I’m nailed to myself,

My own cross;

I’m no Christ yet.

My head’s above the earth,

But it’s far below the sky.

It’s a pity

My thoughts dangle between.

     Swami Nem Pal of Bulandshahr is a veteran politician and poet. His poems are patriotic and moral, full of feeling for the country. He gives waking call to the youth of the country and judges the society with a sense of righteousness. We may give a few examples of his quatrains from his book, India Malcontent in two parts.

Wake up! Advance

On destined track;

Welcomes thee chance;

Wake!  ‘tis daybreak. (5)

Our society

Is so impaired;

It needs piety

           To be repaired. (137)

Deteriorates

Life of nation

It necessitates

              Deep operation. (139)

     Large number poets are writing Haiku and other short poems. Kurt F. Svatek also has written number of very short poems, as in his Touch of Heavens. Large numbers of poets in India and abroad have written and are writing such poems.

     The list of poets and poems is not exhaustive but they focus the world of short verses. Such a short poem may be very short lived like spark with fire in its wing, born to die soon  but joyous as it lives to illuminate; a very temporary affair.

It may also conceal in its frail heart profound ideas or high philosophies, often born out of deep meditation. Short but beautiful, many times such poems keep a mark in the reader’s heart. It may be hoped that such poems will continue to be born to give joy.

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© Aju Mukhopadhyay, 2005