In Madurai,
city of temples and poets,
who sang of cities and temples,
every summer
a river dries to a trickle
in the sand,
baring the sand ribs,
straw and women's hair
clogging the watergates
at the rusty bars
under the bridges with patches
of repair all over them
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ones
shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun
The poets only sang of the floods.
He was there for a day
when they had the floods.
People everywhere talked
of the inches rising,
of the precise number of cobbled steps
run over by the water, rising
on the bathing places,
and the way it carried off three village houses,
one pregnant woman
and a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda as usual.
The new poets still quoted
the old poets, but no one spoke
in verse
of the pregnant woman
drowned, with perhaps twins in her,
kicking at blank walls
even before birth.
He said:
the river has water enough
to be poetic
about only once a year
and then
it carries away
in the first half-hour
three village houses,
a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda
and one pregnant woman
expecting identical twins
with no moles on their bodies,
with different coloured diapers
to tell them apart.
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Comments
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River
From guest Shiny (contact)
The Poem "A River" is a very nice poem. I like the way it was written. -
A RIVER
From guest aditya arya (contact)
This poem suggests about the selfishness of the poets who simply borrow from others but donot create anything of their own. The common incidents of life donot find a place in their poems. -
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To Guest Me
If you can show us the part that is supposed to be missing we can do something about it. For now this is the best we've got!
Jim
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the river
From guest ishika chadda (contact)
it is a great poem which talks about the insensitiveness and the self centeredness of the poets as they think only about their poems and do not care about the outside world -
From guest Naasibah Ayesha (contact)
Of all the poems and poets I ahve read till date,being a literature student, no one has touched me so quickly as this one. This poem has an enchanting impact! It bring out the reality stark naked. -
From guest Prabhu Ram (contact)
With AKR one is often advised to take the Freudian warning that "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". I ignore the warning and go for metaphors even if it seems that it is just me looking too hard. "The poets sang only of floods" is the line I find outstanding here. It is a city of temples and the poets sang of cities and temples. So one can see this poem as one about life experience and creativity. That a creator sometimes becomes cruelly unfeeling and is woesfully dependent on life - even tragedy- to supply him with material for art. Even the poets sing only when the "events" happen. Is life always eventful and the interlinking eventless dryness is not lodged in our memory and the poets do not seem to write about it. So much for art chronicling life when it misses what life is mostly about. Who records ugly details like women's hair clogging the trickle at the rusty bars of an underbridge which itself seems in need of repair. When the floods indeed happen them the rise is discussed - losses become details.The poet then has the materials for his creativity (look at the details said twice just separated by the "He said"). With a twist added in for aesthetics : the river has water enough to be poetic about only once a year Now, can such sparse supply of aesthetics afford to yield ground to other emotions that compete with aesthetics, seems to me a lovely question the poem poses. The last line - my reading of it - is indicative of possibilities and problems (whichever way on chooses to look at it) that the river took away with it. In that one day life chose to be active so that the poet could versify them - and not just be like the others who still rest content with quoting old poets. An excellent poem. -
From guest Aditi Dan (contact)
Its really a great poem of supressed humanity and pathetic connotation, where previously no poets have ever dealt with the disastrous image of a monsoon in a small town. -
A River
From guest saraswati (contact)
It's a beautiul poem by Ramanujan which talks about the city of Maduri. But one thing is not so clear that is no one cares about the pregnant woman and the cows named Gopi and Brinda. -
the river
From guest prasen reddy (contact)
Its a marvelous poem,talking about,dimentionally the other aspect of the river.The fear,agitation of the comming moonsoon is very well explained.it is very appeling to the people of madurai.
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