poet lover

Nissim Ezekiel’s poems are as a rule lucid and are splendidly evocative and satisfyingly sensuous. His poetry reveals more careful craftsmanship, a more conscious intellectuality. In quality and integrity they are conversational directness and ease without losing himself in discursiveness. Let us take our Poet, lover, Birdwatcher where beauty and bareness of statement go together where it weaves the themes of birdwatching, wooing and writing poetry together, and shows their resemblance: the need for patient, quiet waiting until the rare bird is revealed, the woman feels loved and the right word is found for the poem.

The poem of twenty lines in two stanzas is from the Exact Name. It is a rather popular poem, much anthologized and studied. One reason for its popularity is that it outlines a sort of poetic credo. The message of the poem is clear. “The best poets wait for words”. But this waiting is by no means, simple. The poet cannot while away his time, but like the careful birdwatcher, has to remain ever alert. There is the eternal vigil that is the price for the gift of poetry. To stay poised in that tension is what Ezekiel recommends to poets. The whole meaning is enhanced and elaborated through the elaborate and extended comparison with bird watching. The first stanza begins with making love which is like the experience of hunting. Patience rears up desires to be emotive that would yield results. A best lover waits for maturing a lovable situation like appropriate words used by the poet. Art of seducing involve patience. The lover’s hunt for beloved is a calculated exercise of will akin to love that relax on a hill, fluttering of timid wing like that of a bird; waiting is thus a search for moral of love, loving and to be loved. The poet too finds his moral proved in this way by introspection, waiting and watching.

We the human always search for unique, rare and uncanny. We the lovers, the birdwatchers and the poets thus roam about Along deserted lanes