Poetry and chandassu (long): part -II
cjam...@dayton.net
(In part -I of this post, I said, "...
But, neither rhythm nor rhyme nor the powerful expression of thought are
dependent on a recurring meter. A rhythm of its own is often invoked in
modern poetry even without following a specified (recurring) meter", and
promised to give some examples.)
This is, I repeat again, not to say that great poetry can not be created
using chandassu. Some of my favorite poetry is chando-based poetry.
However, I also like several pieces of modern poetry, where it is not
the 'dress' that captures my attention, but the thought itself. For example,
when I think about the poetry that captivated me in the last
year, none of it is chando-based poetry; some of it has a little rhythm
without a recurring meter; but all of them have an idea that captures my
attention and stays with me, not because of the language, but because of
the succinct distillation of that idea in that poem. Take this minee
kavita for example:
kannu teristE jananam
kannu moostE maraNam
reppa paaTE kadaa prayaaNam (kanTi telivi - chandrasEna).
This piece's appeal is not its rhythm, though the maatra count in the
first two lines is approximately the same (the third breaks the pattern
though). Neither is it the alliteration. But, the succinctly clever
observation of the poet (You are not impressed? That's OK!).
The closing lines of maachiraaju saavitri's poem 'immigrenTu dEvuDu'
haunted me for a long time.
...
kaanee
svadESaniki tirigi veLLina dEvuDu
maLLee konDekkaka maanaDu
tirigi vaccina immigrenTlu
en.aar.ai. gaddekkakaa maanaru
dEsam bayaTa vaari guTTeragani amaayakulaku
vaaLLiddari daggaraa ooDigam tappadu!
Not much rhythm; no alliterations here. But, I probably remembered these
lines several hundred times in the last 12 months since I read them (the
complete verse was published in the 10th TANA Conference souvenir).
Want to see rhythm and alliteration in poetry where image and evocation are
the most important elements even though no chandO meters are followed? Look
at our own chandra kanneganTi's ceruvu gaTTu meeda ceTTu where he asks
...
enni kashTaa lenninashTa lennitaDava lennigodavalu
enni rutuvu lennibratuku lennitaraalu coosindO
maa voori ceruvugaTTu meeda raaviceTTu
Or look at this lament of the Indian Muslim by one of today's potent
young voices, khaader mohiyuddeen (puTTu macca)
oka kaTTukatha nannu kaaTEsindi
oka vakreekaraNa nannu vancincindi
oka apaninda nannu allari paaljEsindi
...
pasitanamlOnE
nannu parihasincaayi
paaThyapustakaalu
pOtapOsukoonTunna
naa vyaktitvam meediki
vintavinta bhayaalni usi golipi
nirdaakshiNyamgaa nannu chitravadha cEsi
suDigaalula paaljEsindi charitra
naa pramEyam lEni pariNaamaalaku
nannu kartanu cEsindi vartamaanam
naa astitvam cuTToo
anumaanaala valayaalni vistaristundi vartamaanam
naa netti meeda sadaa
nighaa needalni visirEstundi vartamaanam.
...
There is rhythm here; there is rhyme here; there is alliteration and
assonance here. There ain't any recurring meter. That's OK with me. This
piece could touch me in ways many meticulously metered poems couldn't.
Regards --- V. Chowdary Jampala
Ramarao Kanneganti
> (In part -I of this post, I said, "...
> But, neither rhythm nor rhyme nor the powerful expression of thought are
> dependent on a recurring meter. A rhythm of its own is often invoked in
> modern poetry even without following a specified (recurring) meter", and
> promised to give some examples.)
This is what I meant in a cryptic one-liner that said -- "the language of
chandassu may not be sufficient to express rhyme, rhythm, and readability".
> This is, I repeat again, not to say that great poetry can not be created
> using chandassu. Some of my favorite poetry is chando-based poetry.
:-)!!
> There is rhythm here; there is rhyme here; there is alliteration and
> assonance here.
Notice these three sentences here. They follow the parallelism closely and
take a crescendo up to make point. Read them aloud and you see my point. These
sentences have the qualities they are speaking about.
What exactly is my point? Here it is:
Good writing makes use of several devices. Poetry too makes use of these
devices. Chandassu attempts to codify them. Due to its historicity, it could
codify only a part of the devices. That too, it codified them like a Gaussian
proof -- there is no idea why these rules work and what that background for
these rules. Such information is essential to extend the rules.
Without extension of rules, chandassu will become obsolete, irrelevant, and
dead. Unfortunatly, by believing that the devices contained in chandassu to be
complete, people have erred. Even if they considered extending it they only
added newer meters. It is like working with last years API.
Here is my central thesis: Chandassu follows poetry; it looks at good poetry
and sees what makes them tick. It tries to find reasons and codifies so that
they can be handed to students.
Once the chandassu keeps with times, a good writer can follow chandassu to his
advantage. Yet, a great writer can break it to his advantage. If chandassu is
clever, it will co-opt her and see why her poetry is great and try to codify
it. If it is not, it will lose the potential patronage of people and languish
in the back waters of history along with aavakaaya made with black pepper.
If it fails in capturing the essence of poetry at a level, it will
acknowledge and proceed on. Most likely it will apply for new grants to start
of a new subject. That is subject for another post. [That means, chandassu
alone cannot capture the essence of poetry; at best it can capture the rhythms
in poetry -- only if it constantly creates newer versions.]
> There ain't any recurring meter. That's OK with me. This
> piece could touch me in ways many meticulously metered poems couldn't.
>
> Regards --- V. Chowdary Jampala
--rama