WELCOME
TO
OUR POETRY ARCHIVE
FROM THE EDITOR
Every day we are writing poems, publishing
them online. Getting instant feedbacks in the form of like and comments, which
boosts our confidence as a writer or poet immensely. We are all in the same
boat together. We like each other's poems but never try to dive deep into the
writings of our friends. Always applause each other as a great writer or poet.
Never ever spend much time with each other’s writings to evaluate the literary
merit of the writings properly. Why we do so? We do so because we always like
to be mutually applauded. We never like to be criticized by others. Nor even by
our friends, especially by the virtual friends. So, always we want to be
praised as a great writer or poet. We feel happy whenever we get positive
remarks from our audiences. Now if someone asks us, what sorts of comments do
you consider positive or negative? We all know our answers in our inner soul.
We only consider a comment positive which praises our writings. We never
consider a comment positive which evaluates our poems or writings on its
literary merit and shows us what are the sort comings in our writings. Not only
that, we are so confident of our literary brilliance and so proud of our own
literary achievements that we cannot consider a true critic as a true friend.
In today’s world of power and greed, we have forgot about the basic conditions
of friendship. Especially in this realm of virtual friendship. Everybody is
accustomed to be praised unconditionally as a poet or writer by the virtual
friends. Whenever anyone tries to show someone where and how the literary merit
of the writings is falling short of the benchmark, the friendship gets
jolted.
Yes, it is most unfortunate. And it is
really the unfortunate story of this virtual world. Every one of us are well
aware of this. That is the main reason for which none actually dares to
criticize properly a piece of literary writing.
Nobody likes to lose a friend, so everybody plays safe by congratulating
others for their poems or writings.
These are the general features of virtual
publications and friendship. Now if we concentrate only over poetry as a
literary form, we may discover some new elements out of it. Most of us are
publishing poems over the net. If we research further, we’ll see most of us are
writing poems only after the invent of internet or after the advent of social
sites where one can publish his or her poems instantly without any direct or
indirect intervention of editors. This feature has established a general
consensus on writing of poetry. We think whenever our poems are getting likes
and positive remarks from most of our friends, our poems are literally
brilliant. This gives us immense pleasure and satisfies our self-ego to the
extent of self-pride. Unfortunately, it also blindfolds us from the actual
realities.
One of the greatest poets ever, T.S Eliot
has told us almost a century before that, “Poetry is not a turning loose
of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of
personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who
have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these
things.” Actually, those who have started writing poetry only after the
advent of social sites, have no or little schooling on literature. They are
writing mostly out of their love to express their own feelings and emotions,
love and passions in words and stanzas. So, their writings are mostly the
extensions of their emotions and their individual personalities. Unfortunately,
they and even their readers in general remain unaware that poetry is not at
all the extension of the poet’s own personality. A poem has nothing to do with
the personalized emotional expressions of poet’s own feelings even if how much
passionate that might be.
As a poet, or whenever one writes a poem
should be aware of these basic features about poetry in general propagated by
one of the best ever poetical mind. Yes, I would never deny that, it is much
easier to criticize than to put on paper a piece of pure poetry. Again. I know
how difficult it is to achieve this level to escape from personal emotions and
own’s own personality to embark upon writing pure poem. Yes, it is too difficult
a venture to try even for any general lover of poetry. It requires years of
exercises studies and even meditations. Moreover, this is not possible for
everyone who likes to write poems or even wish to become a poet.
To become a poet, one also has to master
himself or herself on the language of poetry. It is really a difficult
proposition for the general public. One can become a true critic of literature
or poetry without even mastering on the language of poetry. But it is quite
impossible to write a piece of poetry without having achieved that poetical
language skill. If we go on further with our research on the present poetical
scenario of this virtual world of self-publishing, we’ll find an interesting
twist. There are very few poets who realize the importance of escaping from
emotions and personality in writing poems. Yet not all of them have the
essential skills of poetical language. Again, we can find number of poets with
the excellent language skills of poetical expressions but unfortunately without
any idea of poetry itself. Usually these poets believe in spontaneous
expressions of personal emotions in poetry. If one reads their poetry
intensely, one would certainly be really amazed with the power of their writing
skills, the depth of their knowledge of the language itself. But with utter
astonishment one would find the hollowness of their poetical visions. A poet
has to match both parameters to become really a poet, or to even write a pure
piece of poetry,
Now coming back to our starting point, if
we do advise the same to any of our contemporary poets, he or she may consider
that we are trespassing his or her own territory of liberty. It is his or her
fundamental rights to interpret poetry or literature according personal likes
and dislikes. Quite so. No one would argue with that logic. But whenever as a
true friend virtual or not, one tries to help others, we should at least
acknowledge their concern both as a lover of literature and friendship. Most
unfortunately this virtual world is not yet matured enough to realize all these
facts and realities of pure literature, poetry and friendship.
From The
Editorial Desk
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