In the Fire of Self: A
Critique of Stephen Gill’s Shrine
Kanwar Dinesh Singh
On the passage to realization and
recognition of his true “self”, Stephen Gill seeks some sort of withdrawal from
the outer distorted and disconcerting realities to his inner world, which is
the world of his conscience, his scruple, his imagination, his contemplation,
his real self that lies in the dark, yet unexplored. Now he feels the need to
be with his own self, to peer into himself, to talk to himself, to listen to
himself, to express himself and to radiate his own self. Nevertheless, this
search for one’s inner self is the dire need of the hour. Everyman needs to
explore and actuate his/her real self. It is only with the actuation of one’s
rightful self that a healing change can be brought about in today’s ailing
humanity. “Self” is the building block of the world and so holds a place of
great importance. Any kind of flaw in any one of the “selves” may distort the
very edifice of the world. So, it is always imperative for every individual to
keep an eye on one’s “self” to maintain its due configurations and proportions.
Such a task is being endeavoured by the conscientious
poet in Gill, as pronounced in his poem “Me”:
Today
I want to be me;
I wish to sing my own song . . .
In the fire of self
Let me radiate . . .
I want to express my self . .
. (pp. 30-31).
There is no egotism in the poet’s words as such there is the very
emotion for the essentiality and expressivity of the genuine self. The search
for one’s true self is, nonetheless, the beginning of finding eternity.
According to the poet,
“self” is too brittle, wavering and prone to be astray in the fluid and
unpredictable circumstances of today. The “self” needs to be checked,
safeguarded, restrained and steadied. The poet tries constantly to ascertain
the existence and endurance of his self vis-à-vis changing values in the
changing world. In “Self”, he reveals:
Every day
I check the mirror
to be
sure
if the reflection is mine. (p. 44).
Many a
time, his conscience remains silent at the coarse circumstances and heartless
stance of the modern man. In the poem
entitled “Conversation”, Gill asks his conscience “if it had perceived / in the
eyes of humankind / the unshed tears / of hurt and humiliation”, but he found
that his conscience “dozed / like the indifferent gods / on high mountains”,
and soon he gets at its speechlessness: “Its trembling lips / were an ocean of
truth / which revealed to me that / conscience is blessed / with everything, /
except words.” (pp. 40- 41). Indeed, today’s state of
affairs is too appalling, atrocious and upsetting that one’s conscience is
silenced, almost anesthetized. In several poems of Shrine, Gill has
movingly delineated the wretched and abject condition of the contemporary
world, which has shocked and shaken his conscience.
At several places in Shrine, Gill
has ridiculed the human deportment toward nature. He feels that human beings
are foolish to divide, control and claim possessively the objects of nature,
which have been provided to them by God to share in common. In the poem “Who
Shall Buy?”, Stephen Gill tries to establish that nature enjoys dignity and
freedom in herself and this freedom can never and no how be bought or sold or
usurped by anyone for the entire nature is the creation of the divine and not
that of earthly beings, and thence cannot be enthralled by anyone belonging to
this mortal world:
No one can buy
Nor sell . . .
the
blessings of the skies,
the
warmth of the valleys,
the
freedom of the winds,
the
grace of the lakes,
the
dignity of the palm trees,
the
mystery of the oceans,
the
sobriety of the jungles,
. . . the songs of
the seasons,
the
fragrance of the flowers,
the
interdependence
of all
animals, nations and nature . . .
(pp. 32-33)
Stephen Gill employs
certain biblical images accentuating the present day predicament of man in the
poem “Garden of Eden”. He believes that the cause of all human misery is man
himself. It is all due to the wrongdoings of man that he suffers on earth. Ever
since the felony of Adam and Eve, the blunders could not be rectified. Though
Mother Earth provides the refuge:
When Adam and Eve
broke the sceptre of the divine law,
they were
chased out from there;
only mother earth gave them refuge. (p. 36 )
In these lines, one can find a momentous blend of the
Christian and the Hindu beliefs, one in the myth of Adam and Eve and the other
in having the sense/spirit of gratitude towards Mother Earth respectively.
In several of his poems, Stephen Gill thematizes human strife with nature. Man seems to be
conceitedly contesting against nature, without realizing that man is dependent
on nature only for his sustenance. Gill’s ecological vision depicts man as an
offshoot of nature alone, which nourishes and nurses human being as mother,
condoning the misdemeanors of her children. Human beings are always dependent
on nature for her motherly care and concern: “No matter / what they do / and
what they think of themselves, / humans still need / the caring arms of the
earth . . .” (p. 34). The poet thinks that human beings must correct their
demeanor or they are doomed. Earth as mother has always been considerate and
compassionate to man. Even when, for committing a sin, Adam and Eve were ousted
from the Garden of Eden, “only mother earth gave them refuge” out of her
benevolent nature.
The poet feels deeply concerned for the
belligerence between one human being and another. According to Gill, the
bounties of nature are equal for one and all, and since there is no
discrimination in nature, why should it be in the human world. He holds that
humans must realize, appreciate and acknowledge symbiotic interdependence
between one human being and another as they “breathe / the same air / under the
same canopy” (p. 32), and thus they must adorn the human world with grace,
dignity, sobriety, fragrance, freedom and amity. The reasons for which human
beings fight against each other are too trivial, emerging out of self-conceit
and narrow self-centered vision. In fact, all human knowledge is flawed,
leading to false ego and rivalry: “they planted / the seed of the tree of
knowledge” which has “yielded the fruit of / jealousy, superiority, murders, /
rapes and exploitation” (p. 36). The human beings have forgotten that they are
all brethren as they are all offspring of the same mother Earth. The Cain
struggle pains and troubles the mother: “It has poisoned / the arteries of
mother.” (p. 37). The poet warns the self-seeking humans: Her fall / would be
the demise of an age.” (p. 37).
The poet shows profound
concern for peace which is constantly under threat from warfare. He calls the
modern world a “civilization of thorns” (p. 49). In fact, war “crumbles human
relations” and obliterates humanity, love, innocence, happiness, truth,
harmony, melody, comfort, peace, calm, truth, mind and soul. The poet is disturbed even by the thought of
war, which takes him into a closet of dread and anxiety. The news of warfare
and its aftermath shown on the television is nightmarish and horrendous: “Women
crying / around debris, / men hurling abuses / children confused and despaired
. . . .” (p. 54). In empathy, the poet feels himself to be a hostage to the
brutal, inhuman forces:
Alert in the bunker of panic
I lie a hostage
to the
ghastly Gulf War
that
raises
the high
walls of captivity
to my freedom
and peace
in my
own living room
though I am thousands of miles
afar. (p. 53).
In “Talking of Peace”, the poet asserts
that peace cannot be achieved merely by talking of it; though every one wants,
it, envisions it and craves it, but it shall remain a dream until all come
forward against war, weaponry, terror, tension, crime and cruelty. The rulers,
leaders, politicians, and citizens, all talk of peace, but it is futile as long
as “nuclear-powered marines / sail over breasts of the oceans / missiles look
down as hawks / and neutrons / make fun of every life . . . / . . . citizens
are locked / in the prison of their fears . . . / . . . homes are destroyed /
by tensions of human relations . . . / the crop of the arsenal is raised / and
the demons of pollution / stand tormenting us. / . . . there is no accounting /
of criminals; / and the subjects are dominated / by the cruelty of the
autocrats.” (pp. 46-48).
Akin to most of the
expatriate poets, a feeling of nostalgia, insecurity and mal-adjustment in an
exotic atmosphere strikes even Stephen Gill. In poems like “To Humanists”,
“Refugees”, “An Immigrant Complains”, “Go Back”, etc., he explicates the
predicament and paranoia of the expatriates. The conflict arises when the
natives claim to be possessive about their motherland forgetting that the earth
belongs equally to one and all. With a Biblical allusion he tells the native
who asks him to go back to his own country:
Do not tell me to anywhere,
my
friend.
This is our land
where our
father lives.
We are all in exile.”
(p. 81).
What aches
the poet is the splitting up of humanity by reason of egocentrism, ignorance,
doubt, negation and lack of understanding.
Humanity is endangered “beneath the filth / of racial theories / and /
in the cracks of social ladders” (p. 87). Violence, apartheid, racial
discrimination, communalism, hooliganism, larceny, crime, scorn, spite and
differences in the society of today deride humanity and its
Creator. Stephen Gill writes: “Humanity
is torn asunder. / It has carved / disorderly islands: / each an empty tomb of
notions. / These / self-surrounding cells of egoism /
display the nudity / of modern savagery.” (p. 83). Indeed, it is the bloated
ego and self-interest only that is behind most of the ills of contemporary society.
Depicting the condition of the refugees
in an alien country, Gill states: “I have gazed / into the graveyard of their
eyes / . . . / Those guests of humanity / I see
emerging / from one cave / to shelter in another / . . . / A smoke of
uncertainty / surrounds them like fear / and the albatross of loneliness / sits
upon them / like a paperweight.” (p. 76). The refugees being “guests of
humanity” are given an inhuman treatment in the land where they seek shelter
and love. They are bogged down by apathy, bigotry, loneliness, emptiness,
discomfort, ache, misery and injustice. The condition of the refugees on a
foreign land is really pathetic and deplorable: “In the furnace / of their
helplessness / they burn themselves, / not knowing / it turns them into ashes /
beneath the snow / of their hopeless surroundings.” (p. 77).
The present-day world, as depictured by
Stephen Gill, is ridden by chaos, anarchy, violence, animosity, killings,
pillage, fights, famine, starvation, want, poverty, malnutrition, disease /
epidemic, medicine scarcity, untimely deaths, stress, exhaustion, refugee
camps, differences, disharmony, ethnic feuds, lust, intolerance, bigotry,
slight, injustice, ignorance, erroneous notions and assumptions, and lack of
sympathy and understanding, etc. The familiar sight of the world of today
comprises “open mass graves”, “grenades . . .
thrown in places of worship”, “religions
. . . taken to the streets”, “drops of blood”, “cries of the wounded”,
“In half-shut eyes / their dreams are now stones”, etc. And what is even more
distressing is that “The earth / that drank their blood / is speechless . . .
.” (pp. 68-71).
Even a number of
religious faiths do not have any cure for the ailing humanity of today. Rather,
these religions are dragging human beings poles apart. In fact, religious
fanaticism is another curse for the humankind. It is merely due to petty
selfish interests and ignorance that people are turning diametrically opposed
in the name of religion. Gill calls fanaticism as “bearer of deformed urchins /
in the ruins of assumptions” and spells out the reasons behind its growth:
It grows
on the
in the
lap of
the
blinding dust of vanity
by the arrogant prince of ignorance. (p. 63).
Nevertheless, today’s world is
heading unto democracy, but the democratic values of freedom, equality, peace,
harmony, understanding, social justice and self-governance are threatened by
fascist and sadistic forces. But all dangers can be overcome by the “will of
the masses”, so hopes Gill. Democracy has the innate strength to prevail over
all odds and evils, and it proclaims: “as a tower of trust I stand / in the
vastness of fuming waves. / I am aware of the dangers . . . / I know I am
surrounded / by the demons of insanity. / Still I fight alone / holding the
shield of light . . . / With my own strength / and patience / I shall continue
postponing / each Armageddon.” (pp. 57-58).
It is, undoubtedly,
high time to ponder over the future of humanity. The twentieth century has been
“the father of conflicts / . . . pointless struggles . . . / Under
the sky of the soulless glitter” (p. 96), but it is time for everyone to find
out some resolve for the ongoing crisis. In the poem “Legacy”, the poet conveys
how “Today” warns of the impending danger:
I am Today;
. . .
I have planted in my yard
the
trees
which give
the fruits of pain,
fear,
loneliness
and self-destruction. (pp. 92-93).
Shrine is
the document carrying woes of the victims of life in the modern world. A desire
for love, harmony and peace is the repetend in this
volume beside the motifs of alienation, loneliness, insecurity, fear, pain,
suffering, disease, hunger, despair, anger, cruelty, discrimination, injustice,
sex-abuse, terrorism, warfare and several other conflicts of the today’s world.
In “Will of the Masses”, the poet pronounces hope that the common masses have
the power to transform the circumstances provided they come together and assert
their strong will. It was the “will of the masses” alone that had “emerged / in
the Vietnam war; / brought down the / the walls of
I am ice;
anyone can look into me.
Warmth melts me. (p. 65)
In all, there
prevails some sort of open-endedness in most of the poems in this collection.
At places, the poet appears to be writing as a news-reporter in the field
relating the events and incidents happening around while the public is looking
on silently, helplessly and gapingly. In fact, these poems are rather
question-tags put to readers expecting them to ponder over and find out the
pertinent resolves for the ongoing crisis in the human world. Some of the
remarkable features in these poems are: the verbal felicity and flow, narrative
continuity, effortlessness in phraseology, genuineness of feeling, conviviality
and lack of artifice.
Works Cited
Gill, Stephen. Shrine.
All subsequent references to this work have been parenthetically incorporated within the text.
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Author of ten collections of poems of English and Hindi, Dr. Kanwar Dinesh Singh is a recipient of Sahitya Akademi
Award,
and Acharya Mahavir Dwived Samman for his writings.
Currently, he teaches English at a college and
edits Litcrit, a prestigious journal of
creative and critical writing, and also edits Hyphen, a monthly publication of
contemporary
thoughts and human values.