Into the Great Wide Open

I’m listening to ‘Shine on you Crazy Diamond’ by Pink Floyd and the music has inspired me to dabble in this blog till my eyes call it a day. I remember first hearing another one of their great songs - ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ during 12^th grade when the line between school and ‘life’ was nothing more than the edge of a cliff. Indeed, I was ‘Learning to Fly’ and had ‘High Hopes’ of riding the waves of wind unhindered. More on what became of these ‘High Hopes’ further on up the road of this blog; it’s the transition from schooling to college that I’d like to linger with.

The end-years of the journey at St. James’ School were especially interesting, artistically. Having been exposed to thin-layered bubble-gum pop all my life, 11^th and 12^th grades exposed me to more meaningful music thanks to a couple of friends who brought it to my notice and an ever-expanding mind that was drilling through the ‘why(s)’, ‘how(s)’ and where(s) of life with a sharpness that could pierce through stone and drill through ice. The first rock album I ever heard and loved was Sheryl Crow’s self-titled album with thought-provoking numbers such as ‘Maybe Angels’, ‘Everyday is a Winding Road’, ‘The Book’ among others. The sound was different; gut-wrenching, hair-pulling, liberating music oiled by words that said ‘something’. And then, ‘Time Out of Mind’ happened and Bob Dylan quickly became a window to the world just as Sheryl Crow was the door that led me to it. Was I becoming a ‘rebel’? No, I wasn’t but I wasn’t going to call a spade a spade either; not until I turned it over and over a hundred times to ask those key questions, ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘what’.

In my next post, I will dwell on the influence of rock-music on my poetry. Till then, happy writing and goodnight!  

The Ghostly Galleon

Regretfully, I’ve been unable to dig out the “Ghostly Galleon” from her sandy past but thought about it quite a bit and realized that she never ceased to haunt me. I discovered that the galleon I wrote about in school was the same one that resurfaced many years later in the form of an emerald-green ship. The poem is still a work-in-progress; it has been for ages and I just don’t seem to be able to pin it down. I guess it’s the galleon and her knack for playing games with my mind.

Here are a few lines from the original "Ghostly Galleon" (with a lot of effort in recollection) but sadly, that’s all I have for the moment.

‘Queen of the seas’ – a line I’d never use today (it’s cliché)

‘Sails aflutter’ –  she had huge flapping sails (she may have been a ‘dark’ pirate ship)

‘The voices of my education warn me not to’ – I knew I was being tempted and played it safe; I would have had to die to sail with her; a complete no, no.

The poem was printed in the school magazine, The Jacobean.

The Memory Vault: Raw Beginnings

Rhyme appealed to me and I was conscious of it, even as a toddler. It’s musical quality made words dance. Like puppets bobbing up and down from the ends of strings, words could be brought to life dramatically in beats and counts, much like a choreographed spectacle. I was in awe but far too young to fully grasp the finer aspects of poetry-writing; meter, alliteration, structure, imagery etc. It was all about the rhyme.

So, rhyme it was and as I’d advance in years and through the course of my schooling, I’d write a whole lot of poetry that was nothing more than a pish-pash of rhyme; no serious consideration whatsoever for thought progression, meter, length, etc, etc, etc.

Thankfully, the school of my childhood, St.James’ School, gradually set my track in line with destiny. The school had a wonderful set of English teachers who took the language seriously and taught it with passion and flair. There were platforms such as elocution, school journals, debate competitions, that provided added nourishment to a student’s literary buds. I laugh when I recall the times when I’d rush into the school staff-room during tiffin breaks to shower the editor with poems. I’d scribble out one after the other, make sure the last word on each line rhymed (sometimes forcibly), and anticipate that she’d have a very difficult time choosing from my offerings. I bet it was the other way around.

The piece I remember most from my school days was entitled, ‘The Ghostly Galleon’. It was about a sailor fixated on a ghostly ship that tempted him to join its crew. I will share it if I’m able to dig it up. It wasn’t too bad for a 7^th grade student but I'll find more than a hundred flaws in it now. Why pull it down that much, though? It was, in a way, a turning point in that it opened up a peep-hole into the world of the imagination. I’d pass out of school with this added weapon – the imagination, and thankfully, it never deserted me when I put pen to paper.

Thanks to the school magazine and its inclusive approach, my poems found paper-homes and hopefully, a few patient readers. Those were the first baby-steps in reaching-out - a very important component of poetry writing and my first brush with publication. Its ability to touch, influence, affect and permeate is unmatched.

Indeed, there are miles to go before my poetic steps bear the span of elephant footprints but they did grow and I’m appreciative of the literary education in school because it set-off the first, albeit raw, sparks.

Why I Fell in Love with Poetry

I’m not sure why I asked myself this question when considering an opening post for a blog. The answer could run into pages and burst the constraints of blogging altogether. It’s matter voluminous enough for a book but I’ll squeeze as much out of it as possible; so here goes:

I love expression, creation, artistry and emotion. I love words and the clever use of language too. Stir well and you get a slippery ‘poetry’ soup that can be served hot, cold, bland or spiced. It can burn a tongue or satisfy a taste-bud. It is all-powerful in its ability to emote creatively.

It’s an art-form that snapped the elastic rubber-bands around my mind; dissolved the rigid bones into a free-flowing air; formed an escalator of deliverance that took me to space for a view of the world; a view I could zoom in and out of whenever I pleased. It was an empowerment; still is and always will be.