Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher" Nissim Ezekiel

3) Nissim Ezekiel "Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher"

Biography:-

Nissim Ezekiel who is considered the foremost among the modern Indian poets writing in English is, like Ramanujan and Parthasarathy, an academic poet in more than one sense: He was a Professor of English in Bombay University and more importantly, he is as much an intellectual and a philosopher as a poet. His birth and background were such that while his roots were in a non-Indian, Jewish Parsi religion and culture, he grew to be an Indian both in his beliefs and world-view and devel­oped into a personality that was too complex for easy analysis.

Ezekiel was born in Bombay in 1924. After his early schooling he joined Wilson College, Bombay and later went to Birkbeck College London. Though he went to England to study philosophy under C.E.M. Joad he showed no less an interest in the theatre and the visual arts as also in poetry and his career as a clerk in the High Commissioner’s office in London had not in any way made him slacken his interest either in his intellectual pursuits or in his creative efforts.

Ezekiel has held many important positions besides that of a professor at Bombay. He was the Editor of Quest, Imprint and the poetry page of The Illustrated Weekly of India and he has been a visiting professor at several universities both in India and in the U.S. and Australia. He was a so Director of a theatre Unit in Bombay.

Ezekiel’s first volume of poems appeared under the title A Time to Change (1952) and the other volumes which followed were Sixty Poems (1953), The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Man (1965) and Hymns in Darkness (1976). While the poems in these volumes focus on a variety of themes such as love, sex, death, loneliness and prayer, they bear testi­mony to the fact that Ezekiel showed a consistent preoccupa­tion with the banality as well as the complexity of present day civilization as he perceived it in the Indian scene.

Summary/ Critical Appreciation of "Poet, Lover, and Birdwatcher":-

‘Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher’ is a popular poem, much anthologized and studied. It embodies the poet’s search for a poetics, which would help him redeem himself in his eyes and in the eyes of God. The message of the poem is clear, ‘The best poets wait for words’: the best poets begin to write poetry only when they are truly inspired or when they experience a moment of illumination or enlightenment, only then do the right poetic words come to them. This waiting is not so simple. The poet cannot while away his time, but like the careful birdwatcher, has to remain ever alert. The gift of poetry comes at the cost of eternal vigil. The poets have to remain poised in that state of tension. ‘To force the pace’ is to compel oneself to make haste. ‘Never to be still’ is never to remain motionless, but to be always on the move. ‘Or women’ are of those who study women and those who pursue the women they love, it is not only require a lot of patience but also forbearance capacity to bear undetermined time.

‘The hunt’ is the search for birds or the desire to win a woman’s heart, it require patience. It is highly pain taking job. In case of love person has to wait until the reply of the woman. Those do not have that much capability they could not become successful in their love that must understand.  Through this poem the poet is conveying the idea of  poem, love and hunt which require similar things which are earlier mentioned. ‘

 ‘Until the one who knows that she is loved’ is for the man to wait for the woman to respond to his love out of her own accord, and should not force himself upon her. One who fail remain silent during the process such person fail to achieve the favour of woman.

‘In this the poet finds his moral proved, Who never spoke before his spirit moved’: In the examples of the bird watcher and the lover, the poet would find the right parallels and would be able to draw a moral for his own guidance. The poet’s view that waiting patiently ultimately brings its reward is vindicated.

The ‘deserted lanes’ are the untrodden pathways where one can see rare birds. ‘Remote and thorny like the hearts dark floor’ is the simile used obscurely and probably means the unexplored depths of human heart, just as there may be faraway and distant seashores with thorny bushes that are inhabited by rare birds. The idea of labour and hard-work is implied here with regard to a bird watcher in search of rare birds and to a poet in search of the right words. ‘And there the women slowly turn around, not only flesh and bone but myths of light’: Only after undergoing an arduous journey may the lover get some response from the woman. The woman then becomes for him not just a being of flesh and blood, but appears as a radiant spirit which is not so much real, but mythical and imaginary. She is no longer a mere physical presence. The poet has thus glorified love as well as the woman who eventually responds to a man’s love.

‘With darkness at the core’ is the center of the woman’s personality which is shrouded in darkness even after she has been transformed into a radiant spirit; she still continues to be a mystery or an enigma. ‘And sense is found By poets lost in crooked, restless flight’ refers to the poets find meaning and significance in things even when they have been puzzled and perplexed earlier, like a bird which has lost its way; this illumination comes only after patiently waiting for the right moment. A third element which is that of love is also introduced in the poem. Courtship, bird watching and poetry, thus become related. In each case, the attitude that is recommended is of passive alertness, not of anxiety, hurry, aggression, or hyper-activity. The more one is agitated, the less one gains. The one who is loved is not pursued like a quarry, but watched with such intensity and patience that she ultimately risks surrendering. There is no action, no exercise of will, in a poet, a lover, or a birdwatcher, but patient waiting itself a strategy in order to achieve the goal.