Essay on Background Casually by Nissim Ezekiel
1.5 POET, LOVER, BIRD WATCHER
The best poem of this volume 'Poet, Lover, Bird-watcher' displays
Ezekiel's views on poet's problems. He thinks the best poets wait for words, like ornithologists sitting in silence to see birds.
Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher is one of the better known poems of Ezekiel and has received considerable critical attention. It epitomizes the poet's search for a poetics which would help him redeem himself in his eyes and in the eyes of the god. Parallelism is drawn between the poet, the lover and the Birdwatcher.
All the three have to wait patiently in their respective pursuits, indeed their 'waiting' is a sort of strategy, a plan of action which bear fruit it persisted in and followed with patience. It is patient waiting which crown the efforts of all the three with success.
Ezekiel attempts to define the poet in terms of a lover and the birdwatcher.
There is a close resemblance among them in their search for love, bird and word. All the three become one in spirit, and Ezekiel expresses this in imagery noted for its precision and decorum:
The hunts is not an exercise of will
But patience love relaxing on a hill
To note the movement of a timid wing..
There is no action, no exercise of will in all the three cases, but 'Patient waiting' is itself strategy., a kind of planned action to reach the goal. The patience of the birdwatcher is rewarded when the timid bird is suddenly caught in the net; the patience of the lover is rewarded, when the woman loved, risks surrendering. Similarly, if the poets wait still the moment of inspiration, he achieves some noble utterance. "Bird - beloved - poem syndrome runs throughout the lyric".
The Second-stanza stresses the fact that slow movement is good. One has to go to remote place just as one has to discover love in a remote place like the heart's dark floor. It is there, that women look something more than their body, and that they appear like myths of light. And the poet, in zigzag movements, yet with a sense
The best poem of this volume 'Poet, Lover, Bird-watcher' displays
Ezekiel's views on poet's problems. He thinks the best poets wait for words, like ornithologists sitting in silence to see birds.
Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher is one of the better known poems of Ezekiel and has received considerable critical attention. It epitomizes the poet's search for a poetics which would help him redeem himself in his eyes and in the eyes of the god. Parallelism is drawn between the poet, the lover and the Birdwatcher.
All the three have to wait patiently in their respective pursuits, indeed their 'waiting' is a sort of strategy, a plan of action which bear fruit it persisted in and followed with patience. It is patient waiting which crown the efforts of all the three with success.
Ezekiel attempts to define the poet in terms of a lover and the birdwatcher.
There is a close resemblance among them in their search for love, bird and word. All the three become one in spirit, and Ezekiel expresses this in imagery noted for its precision and decorum:
The hunts is not an exercise of will
But patience love relaxing on a hill
To note the movement of a timid wing..
There is no action, no exercise of will in all the three cases, but 'Patient waiting' is itself strategy., a kind of planned action to reach the goal. The patience of the birdwatcher is rewarded when the timid bird is suddenly caught in the net; the patience of the lover is rewarded, when the woman loved, risks surrendering. Similarly, if the poets wait still the moment of inspiration, he achieves some noble utterance. "Bird - beloved - poem syndrome runs throughout the lyric".
The Second-stanza stresses the fact that slow movement is good. One has to go to remote place just as one has to discover love in a remote place like the heart's dark floor. It is there, that women look something more than their body, and that they appear like myths of light. And the poet, in zigzag movements, yet with a sense