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SHRINE (Poems of Social Concerns)

Dr. Chhote Lal Khatri

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*Appeared in Cyber Literature.

December, 1999. Pages 91-92

Dr Stephen Gill is an internationally recognised poet, novelist and prose writer with more than twenty publications to his credit. What is remarkable about Gill is that he writes verse or prose with a mission to bring peace, harmony and brotherhood. As he writes in the Preface "The cure to the malady of religious and racial fanaticism and violence lies in the acceptance of the values of tolerance, understanding and co-existence." This mission has become a passion for him that keeps reverberating in his writings and speeches. In this respect, his poetry may be called a vehicle in aid to his crusade for world peace. But he cannot be called a propagandist. For he is propagating nothing of his own but trying to spread and consolidate the most cherished values of humanity which are universal. His poetry should be read and evaluated in the light of his past nightmarish experiences in India when communal riots broke out in the wake of partition of India. It made him migrate from India and settle in Canada. But there also the memories of brutality and tortured childhood always kept haunting him like his own shadow. Purged in the fire of sufferings the young Stephen evolved into a muse full of compassion and he made it a summum bonum of his life to fight the vice of violence, hatred and enmity and embrace the suffering masses with love and sympathy. Same thought and feelings are echoed in Shrine. The title of Shrine symbolically represents his journey from disbelief to belief, from shaking faith in God to unflinching faith in Him.

The volume consists of sixty poems on various aspects of our social life-- the problem of drug addiction, refugee, war, terrorism, atrocities on women and children, communalism and aids. They are born of his experiences and hence they are authentic outpourings of his creativity. Shrine begins on a confessional note in the poem "Me". The poem conveys two things: his journey inward to recollect his past experiences, "Let me find me./ my smiles/ my own hurts/ and his obsessive urge to communicate his past recollections, his feelings to his reader." I want to express myself." What he sings is an anthem of freedom. "No one can buy/ nor sell/ the freedom of the winds." As a sensitive poet, he identifies himself with a sexually abused adolescent and gives a pathetic picture of her trauma in the longest poem of this collection. "Amputee" : She was sexually abused/ from the age six./ "The years of abuse/ has damaged the delicate nerves/ of her

relationship with God/ men and herself." And she has become a prisoner of her own cage "where the hurt crawl/ swells and sob." But finds no way "to break loose from the shackles of the past. He shares the agony of the "Mother of an Aids Ridden Son": She gave him months of her love/ as she watched/ the horror of his dying./ She wants to hold him/ in her arms once more./ She has now/ sorrow and memories to own."

Similarly he recaptures the degenerating effects of drug addiction in "Slavery and "A Heroine

Addict", and shows in a narrative fashion how drug addiction can lead an innocent boy to a world of crime. The problem that an immigrant faces he might have faced in Canada and response to it in this beautiful poem "Refugee: "A smoke of uncertainty/ surrounds him like fear/ and the albatross of loneliness/ sits upon him/ like a paperweight."

He reacts sharply to the act of "terrifying human exodus and on the question of their being in exile "Do not pose this question./ It reveals / the Caliban of your ignorance". The theme of alienation is also touched upon in other poems like "Legacy : "I am Today; / disfigured cradles /of maddening struggle/ for the future/and a garland of glaring pebbles."

These and some other poems like "New Canadian in Toronto", express a deep sense of personal loss. But poems like "Divided Humanity", "To Humanists", "Moon", "Children of Prometheus", "Twentieth Century Says" bemoan the shattering values of humanity, freezing human hearts in the spell of mechanisation in this modern age. The poet expresses a Wordsworthian concern for man's falling apart from Nature's design: "Humans are created like flowers, / but they hecame intoxicated / with pride/and created / their own plastic roses and jasmines / without roots."

His concern for world peace is echoed here also in poems like "Talking Peace", "Our rulers talk of peace /but it is futile/ when nuclear‑powered machines/ sail over breasts of the oceans;/ missiles look down like hawks.." "War Fever" echoes the same concern," War fever/ kills the lambs of truth ../ and urge/ the smashing of peace."

Similarly "Hounds of War" and "Gulf Crisis on T V" are serious indictment against the maladies of war. He also directs his tirade against "Arms Traders" who forget the dove that is hidden in the caves of blood'. It is a purifying force and is opposed to "the web of greed' and "the mud of politics."

Dr. Gill's poems in general are simple and at times plain; images and metaphors that he employs are communicative and not decorative. In them Iyric is subservient to the greater thematic concern and the emphasis is on the forceful communication of his social concern to achieve a wider goal, the realization of his dream of a world free from fear, hunger. discrimination hatred and violence. I wish that the dream may come true . The poems of Shrine are not merely social commentary but are fine flashes of poetry that appeal to our conscience.

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* Dr. Chhote Lall Khatri, a reputable poet and critic, teaches English Literature at S.S. College in Jehanabad, Bihar, India. He edits Cyber Literature, a deeply respected literary publication.