This Week in Poetry

This Week in Poetry: A. K. Ramanujan’s “Waiting,” “Farewells,” “Returning,” and “Daily Drivel”

Professor Nedumaran introduces an episode of “This Week in Poetry” featuring poems from A. K. Ramanujan’s Uncollected Poems and Prose (Oxford India, 2001) and recommends Journey’s A Poet’s Diary (Penguin Random House, 2019). He discusses and reads four poems: “Waiting,” where a speaker watches a family walk by while he waits without knowing for whom or where; “Farewells,” which turns ordinary leave-takings—train delays, a cooperative society presentation, and a dying patriarch’s family gathering—into conversational, humorous, and poignant poetry; “Returning,” in which a 61-year-old searches for his mother and suddenly remembers she has been dead for 40 years; and “Daily Drivel, a monologue,” a fast-paced list of chores that ends with the speaker contrasting his mundanity with a partner’s trip to see Othello.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit poetryprofessor.substack.com

Hello there! Welcome to This week in Poetry with Prof. Nedumaran. In this episode we will be exploring the poems of Nissim Ezekiel.“Best poets wait for words”- Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher.

Nissim Ezekiel waited for his words throughout his academic, poetic,public life. Through his poetry he asserted his identity as Indian, though born of Jewish parents. He was a promoter of poetry. Bruce King, the author of Modern Indian Poetry in English firmly declares, “ Others wrote poems; Ezekiel wrote poetry”.

Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa TS, Night of the Scorpion and Enterprise are up for reading in this episode.Goodbye Party is an interesting satire on our speech patterns and behaviours in certain social contexts.

Night of the Scorpion written in the sixties is Ezekiel's vision of the spoken voice. His mother is poisoned by a scorpion's sting.The poem recalls how the father responded, how the ‘peasants’ behaved in that context and the final ‘motherly comment’. Ezekiel presents reality as” observed, known,felt and experienced”. No room for the intellect to play.

Enterprise - The poem is about a journey. A metaphor for searching for the self. A quest.

Well without much ado. Let's join the Party!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit poetryprofessor.substack.com

In the opening episode of this podcast, Prof. Nedumaran reads a couple of poems written by Kamala Das - My grandmother's house and an introduction. Enjoy!

Exploring Indian Poetry in English: Week 1

Professor Nedumaran dives into the world of Indian poetry in English in this podcast episode. He shares his journey with the English language and how he discovered various new words. He credits this curiosity and passion to his teachers and other sources of English learning like All India Radio. The focus of the episode is on Indian poet Kamala Das, her eccentric style of writing, and her two poems 'An Introduction' and 'My Grandmother's House'. Professor Nedumaran discusses the uniqueness of Kamala's Indian-English idiom, her daring challenges to traditional norms, and her self-expression. The episode concludes with a humble invitation to listeners to ignite their love for poetry and to join again the following week for a new episode.

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and the Host's Journey

01:20 The Power of Listening and Learning Languages

02:37 Teaching English Poetry and the Impact of Words

03:08 Exploring Indian Poetry in English

04:00 The Beauty of Words and Sounds in Poetry

04:09 Introduction to Kamala Das and Her Poetry

07:17 Reading and Analysis of Kamala Das's Poems

13:40 Conclusion and Invitation for the Next Episode

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit poetryprofessor.substack.com

Welcome back to this week in poetry - episode seven. A poem is communicated before it is understood. Hence, a poem shall be read aloud heard, especially its music, its orchestrated sounds. The listeners shall feel those sounds before attempting analysis, particularly content analysis. Poems were read aloud in public, in durbars, in the presence of kings and people.

And therefore this week in poetry is an effort at reviving the tradition of Kavi Samelans and Kavi Arangams where poets presented their work to the aficianados and lovers of poetry. Right. Without much ado, let's move on to the poems.

We shall first take up a poem - Ars Poetica, a poem on what poetry is by a modern American poet, Archibald MacLeish.

Then we move on to yet another American poet, William Carlos Williams. Who gives us a deceptively short poem, this is just to say.

Finally we listen to Charles Bukowski, another modern American poet who was called the poet laureate of American low life, with his confessional lyrics about his life in Los Angeles. We present his the laughing heart and roll the dice.

Let's go. And listen.

Thanks for being patient listeners! Do write to me with your feedback and reading suggestions.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit profrn.substack.com

Welcome back to This Week in Poetry. Oh, I am absolutely thrilled to be back with my listeners after a break. We shall begin our new season, visiting some of the great minds who made a huge difference to the ways creativity and poetic imagination would take shape in the 20th century.

In this episode, we shall listen to couple of poems from W. B. Yeats, the Anglo, Irish poet, and two poems from the Tamil revolutionary poet of the 20th century, Bharathi Dasan.

Adam's Curse by W.B. Yeats. Professor Harold Bloom calls this poem, a wisdom meditation. Quite rightly so. Meditation on hard work, beauty and love.

A Coat by Yeats. He wrote this poem in 1914. An interesting poem about the need for a poet to be inventive, creating new rhythms, discovering new content while discarding, old coats, though embroidered and attractive. For me as a teacher, I have to keep alive the urge to be creative, inventive and enterprising. Even though as a teacher, I'm burdened with critiques and interpretations by scholars from around the world.

But then as I, walk into the class, in the words of Yeats, walk naked. Don't carry, your burdens of knowledge. No more embroideries.

Puratchi Kavingyar Bharathi Dasan. It was a major voice after Poet Bharathi. Deeply engaged, in the self-respect movement of Periyar EVR, a strong and passionate believer in Tamil nationalism, a casteless tamil society, a pure and de Sanskritised Tamil language and above all a great lover of nature.

One could find the traces of the revolutionary fervor of Shelley's poetry in poems like Sudanthiram, and Ulagappan Paattu.

That's all I have for you this week. Thanks for listening. Please do share this link with friends and families. We'll catch up with you in my next episode, with more voices from the 20th century till then stay safe and keep listening.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit profrn.substack.com

In this episode, we have an impressive playlist of poems. We being with a reading of a poem by Billy Collins, an American poet. We also have Thomas Hood from the romantic period, and we close the episode with a poem by Meera.

Needless to remind you, we are surrounded by words from the past and the present from east and west, north and south, we get giddy with emotions and thoughts, moods and feelings, entertaining, enlightening, inspiring, always engaging us in a conversation. Listening to them is more than communication.

It's an awesome experience. Well, then let's go time to visit the poets.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit profrn.substack.com

Hello there! Welcome to Episode 4.

Beginning this episode I shall be presenting some of the best poems in world poetry i enjoyed reading & teaching.

Let's listen to the words! Let life touch you! We spend a lot of time indoors in these strange times, hardly communicating with the near and dear, separated by distance and dread of disease! Time for some sunshine! Words from these great men and women bring so much joy, restore balance, and the power to face life head on! Listening becomes such a special joy,
strengthening ties, reinforcing faith in life, sustaining our hope for better times.

’A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom’ said Frost. We relate our own thoughts,feelings, happenings in our lives to the life revealed in the poem. The compressed nature of short/excerpts we read leads the listener to a spiritual or emotional high.

Remember the closing lines of a long elegy Lycidas “ At last he rose, twitched his mantle blue; tomorrow to to fresh woods and pastures new.’ Every Time a tragedy strikes you, you visit these words for comfort, for hope,for courage to move on with life.

William Shakespeare:
An enduring and commanding influence on world cultures, creator of around 1200 characters, mobilised more than 20000 words, We will visit him as often as we can!
They say you cultivate your eq thru the plays,relating yourself to the characters,.Let them speak to you directly! Read him,again and again!

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare:
It's not about love or romance as many sonnets are.Its about the autumn of life, about ageing, gracefully ageing I guess. Learn to love the poem when young! The images of autumn will travel with you right through the winter of life. Drama of life in 14 lines, from the master himself! To the sonnet then!

Robert Frost:
A great regional voice from America, from New England. An extraordinary American phenomenon in the words of Prof. Harold Bloom, wise, witty, he firmly believed in the
Delight, wisdom poetry gives. This poem Road Not Taken is about choices, It tells us how difficult it is to make choices and enjoy the differences they bring to our lives.

Kavikko Abdul Rahman:
One of the significant voices of New Tamil poetry. Of the 20th century. Distinguished professor of tamil he has brought new dimensions to tamil poetry thru his complex images,
A deceptively mesmerising style, his poems a blend of love, life and spiritualism.

On to Episode 4! Time to lend our ears to Shakespeare, Frost, and our very own Kavikko Abdul Rahman!!! Happy listening!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit profrn.substack.com

In this episode, we'll explore the poems of A.K. Ramanujan. AKR as he was popularly known was born in 1929 in Mysore. He moved to the us in 1962 and became a very distinguished Professor of linguistics and dravidian studies at the University of Chicago. He's well known for his poems of love and war, an anthology of classical poems in Tamil translated into the English language. His poems in English are the reflections of an expatriate Indian poet, swinging between his perceptions of the vitality, energy, freedom of the west and his memories of his roots in his classical past in South India.

In this episode, we listen to his poem in English, A River - about the Vaigai river in Madurai, which remains dry most of the summer, but always romanticized by Tamil poets. In one of his visits to Madre, the poet was shocked to see the river in floods, cutting away three village houses, a couple of cows, one pregnant woman, and yet the Tamil poets, unperturbed and indifferent continued to paint a romantic vision of the river.

I have also chosen to read a classical Tamil poem by Kaniyan Poongundran, written between 100 BC and 250 AD in Tamil. It's called, Every town a hometown.

The Poems:
1. Every town a home town by Kaniyan Poongundran. Translation by A.K. Ramanujan
2. A River by A.K. Ramanujan

Music:
Lesfm from Pixabay
JuliusH from Pixabay
NaturesEye from Pixabay

Enjoy the poems!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit profrn.substack.com

Hello there! Welcome to This week in Poetry with Prof. Nedumaran. In this episode we will be exploring the poems of Nissim Ezekiel.

“Best poets wait for words”- Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher. Nissim Ezekiel waited for his words throughout his academic, poetic,public life. Through his poetry he asserted his identity as Indian, though born of Jewish parents. He was a promoter of poetry. Bruce King, the author of Modern Indian Poetry in English firmly declares, “ Others wrote poems; Ezekiel wrote poetry”.

Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa TS, Night of the Scorpion and Enterprise are up for reading in this episode.

Goodbye Party is an interesting satire on our speech patterns and behaviors in certain social contexts.

Night of the Scorpion written in the sixties is Ezekiel's vision of the spoken voice. His mother is poisoned by a scorpion's sting.The poem recalls how the father responded, how the ‘peasants’ behaved in that context and the final ‘motherly comment’. Ezekiel presents reality as” observed, known,felt and experienced”. No room for the intellect to play.

Enterprise - The poem is about a journey. A metaphor for searching for the self. A quest.

Well without much ado. Let's join the Party!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit profrn.substack.com

In the opening episode of this podcast, Prof. Nedumaran reads a couple of poems written by Kamala Das - My grandmother's house and an introduction. Enjoy!

Production & Design: www.inscapemedia.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit profrn.substack.com