Interview with The Vinnomukh Magazine
Read full Interview at Dispatches Poetry War
Vinnomukh: Mallarme said, “Poetry is written with words, not with ideas”. That means, he said about construction. What is your opinion about the construction in poetry?
Runa: What is poetry? Is it only an unnamed un-embodied sorrow? Is there only an incomprehensible existence, surrounded by intense possessive feelings? Is it the search for infinity or the elusive solitude or the call of unseen? When the temperature of the neuron cells about to be exhausted, and in that dim light the destination become greyed, I was startled with Mallarme’s word. Then word is the Brahma! With that words of the poetry, we want to touch the feelings of the poet. Poetry is a sensation or feeling, which arises from an event of life, or a moment’s experience. Even if it is a rough incident or experience, all feelings have its own inherent beauty. During the action and reaction of the striking feelings, the poet flies to his world of imagination. The word formation of this imaginary world is called the poetry. Now, if this feeling would have been transmitted to the consciousness of the reader without any conversation, it would have been the best system. However, it doesn’t happen. Therefore, it becomes necessary to construct a framework of words and the original experience of the poet will be the centre of gravity of that. The joyous pain of this revelation seems to be the creation or construction, which is enjoyed by every poet. The perfect selection of words, making new words by combining or breaking words, making compact sentence, and their balancing continues surrounding the centre. Like our moving life, creating scene after scene, the construction process remains in a continuous motion until the reader’s senses are resonated with the poet’s frequency.
Vinnomukh: Though time remains in the centre of the poetry, it seems to be that the poet’s words want to cross the time, the silence of time, restlessness – all these comes to poet as different beauty. What your feelings want to say about this?
Runa: The Poet Dhiman Chakraborty said, “There is nothing called as time …. There is no relation of time with the traditional eternity. The time lies in the middle of our thoughts and relationships.” The Fourth Dimension stays silently at the boundary of the realism of matter and the materialistic world. It is waiting at the centre of the poetry. From the navel root of the time the poet bows down to the third footprint, however its silence crosses the horizon and keeps its mark on the poet’s mind. With the desire of the time-pendulum the poet breaks the time into pieces and mixed with the poetry.
Vinnomukh: The poetry should be without analogy and non-rhetorical. Sometimes these ideas wake up. Is it possible to completely eliminate these elements? Is it possible to write absolutely non-rhetorical poetry?
Runa: No analogy, no rhetoric. Instead of that, breaking the border of all cosmetics of poetry let the rhythmic song to rise on the mountain. With the memory of the rainbow, I immersed myself in the possibility of the word “gaanbow[1]”. The sky is painting the mark of flying with the raindrops where “Chayanisamapa[2]” is playing. I immersed myself in the songs of possibilities with new words without analogy or rhetorical expression.
Vinnomukh: There is a relation between the poetic language and the body language of the word. The poetic language changes through the restlessness of this body language – how do you see it?
Runa: The poetic language changes from time to time due to the changes in the constructional structures of the poetic language. Word is the fire of oblation in the art of composition. From the restlessness in the body language of the poetry, a deep invitation plays in the interior of the creation process of the poet. When I entered into the word to express any feeling, light and shade of the fairy tales of the words start interplaying in my mind. The way I knew or used that word, it would not be like that. It wants to say something more. It wants to build a bridge or connection with my consciousness. The change in the application of the word changes the language. The poet creates the scenery, the moving scenery. For the sake of making those sceneries, the word goes beyond the dictionary meaning and disappears by adding another deeper meaning according to the poet’s desires. However, the presence of the constructed word leaves an indistinct impression in the heart of the composition. Poet is always dissatisfied with the vocabulary of the dictionary. From there the poet starts to walk towards the invitation of the unseen bird and constructs his own thought-provoking vocabulary. Therefore, the unstable movement of the body language of the words changes the language of poetry from time to time.
Vinnomukh: Is the poetry is a search for existence, or a search for mystery? Or none of those? Then what is it?
Runa: Poetry is not the search for existence, rather searching for the mystery of life. Poet gets the hints of the wonder of the world and life. Every turn of life, every future step of life is waiting for the possibility of a mystery. As if, a distant island will send an invitation to the innermost consciousness. An unseen tune of possibilities will ring in the interior of the heart, like the decaying mercury in the indistinct mirror of life. It will touch more and more hearts with its endless tune. Hence, we fly in the sky of possibilities to find out the mysterious way.
[1] Gaanbow– A new word, meaning, song like rainbow, made by the poet Barin Ghosal. He used this word without analogy with “rainbow” but the attributes of “rainbow” could be easily related to the word.
[2] Chayanisamapa – A new word, meaning the song of shadow, made by the poet Swapan Roy. He used this word without analogy with notation of song but the attributes of song could be easily related to the word.
Runa Bandyopadhyay 