Seeking The Dove of Peace:
The Poetry of Stephen Gill
Sailendra Narayan Tripathy
A homeless
beggar
I wander
to catch a
glimpse of reality
from different
angles
on the pieces
of glass. (“Self”, Shrine)
I am no admirer of political or
realistic poetry. I was somewhat skeptical, when I started reading the verse of
Stephen Gill; i.e. Sialkot-born poet, who grew up in
I must confess Shrine his
collection gripped me like an Octopus. He has a long introduction which he
could have done without. But the biographical details help us to understand
more of his poetry and of course his vision. Wasn’t Yeats a political poet?
What about the plays of Arnold Wesker? What about
Osborne’s Look Back In Anger? Or the poems of Sengher or Nobel Prize winner Zymberska?
A poet is born and bred in society. He
is deeply influenced by the flotsam and jetsam of history. T. S. Eliot’s epoch-
making essay “Tradition and Individual Talent” so Discovering Stephen Gill
eloquently talks about the writer’s debt to history. Even Gill says, “A person
is largely the product of the environment”.
Shrine is the poet’s reaction to the tumultuous events of
history; all that overtook him and a trail of scars left on the good earth.
It brings darkness
to the mind
spoils the taste of happiness
mutilates the body of humanity,
compelling
the worship of violence
seizure of sons from mothers
and
the cultivation of thorns. (“War Fever”)
There are veiled hints and suggestions
to the bloodbath, history witnessed during the partition years of India-
Pakistan. Like swan in Yeats’ poetry, Gill’s dominant image is that of dove,
which stands for world peace. But the dove is under threat:
Sleeping
in the web of greed
arms traders forget the dove
hidden in caves of blood. (“Arms Traders”)
The dove of peace lies in tatters. The
dove is intimidated by the “hounds of war” and is smeared in blood.
The dove
pleads
that the dance of
the hounds
be stopped
to let her
pacifying carol
fortify human
muscles
to build more Taj Mahals
and pyramids of
justice. (“Hounds Of
War”)
Bloodshed, violence, the bleeding dove, the
arms traders, the hounds of war are not the only problems gripping Gill. His
poetry unravels the democratic vistas. He dreams of flowers of democracy
blooming everywhere in the world. There is no gainsaying the fact that Gill at
heart is a Humanist and he wants happiness and peace of mankind. In the poem
“My Beliefs”, he makes it clear what would be his vision and peace is the
ultimate goal of life. To reach that goal, mankind needs a democratic vision:
I rather believe
famine is man-made
and sunshine a child of peace. (“My Beliefs”)
He is totally against the sword, the
bullet or the bomb. He had a surfeit of it in his childhood, which is soaked in
blood.
Those
who kiss
the lips of the sword
fall victims to its fury. (“Convictions”)
The rise of fundamentalism and the
despotic rules and the walls of mistrust fill him with anguish:
I
am a human
I
love human kind.
Smile,
my friend
because
we are all one. (“I Am Still A Man”)
There are existential anxieties and angst
of a nuclear holocaust of a third world war:
If
the nuclear bombs drop
Will
the buds bloom again?
Will
the birds chirp again?
Will
the spring return again? (“A
Question”)
But what left me haunted is a poem addressed
to his mother, whom he left in the prime of his youth, never to see
her again:
Years
have gone by still
I
see your tearful eyes
and catch the choking moans
coming from the crumbling pyramid
of pains. (“To Mother”)
That is vintage Gill; the magical mixture
of moods, music, and memories. Didn’t P.B.Shelley
say “A poet is an uncrowned legislator of mankind.” Gill belongs to that bardic race. Like Whitman he sings of man. That is the
oldest song of the world.
Books cited
Gill, Stephen. Shrine.
_____.
Songs Before Shrine.
=========================================
Sailendra Narayan Tripathy is with the
Department of English, BJB College, Bhubaneswar,
Orissa. He is the Editor of Poesie
God And Other Poems,
My Father In Heaven, Hole 'N’ Soul, The Trapped Word and Moon ‘N’
Cuckoo's Nest (Edited with Stella Browning
and Teresinka Pereira). His poems have been
translated
into Spanish, Italian, and
Russian languages