Commonwealth Poetry

Poet is the narrator of the poem.  poem implies a story about grandmother's funeral. Poem has powerful declarative element of narration. This feature also has in the poem '' Night of the Scorpion''. Indian poets are good for storytelling. The narration in this poem carries free verse style. No regular rhyme or rhythm. This poem is not like traditional poetry starting with capital letters. stanza by stanza it has broken sentences beginning with simple letters. It shows the characteristics of contemporary poetry have free verse. In this poem writer is not concern about regularity of rhythm and the pattern of rhyme. These are useful techniques for a poet to support the meaning of what he says. But he don't form the core of their message. Therefore these techniques are not absolutely necessary. From ignoring rhyme and rhythm  poet can freely handle language. Mahapatra in his poem Grandmother   tried to capture the natural  rhythm of an Indian speaker, which of cours...

 The child narrator of poem come with his father for funeral of his granny. The village grandmother lived is far far away with hard destination. Because of that father and son reached too late to the funeral. At the moment granny's body take away. That night child saw the father on bed look at the wall and crying secretly and silently. This is how he express hidden sorrow. This poem's setting is uncleaned landscape and hard roads in the Indian village. Characterization is minimal. It's characters are Indian. Major characters are a father and a son. Maybe grandmother. But she was dead. Minor characters are neighbors, cousins, relatives, friends and other closers who came to funeral. The plot of this poem is Mahapatra emphasizes psychological grief, toleration acceptance of sorrow as it is. And the conflict in the poem is narrow roads among fields where father and son couldn't walk. They are fill with disgusting animals like like crabs, snails. And also it is a dark time ...

 The poem opens with a scene of the poet and his father come to an Indian Village in a crowded bus. Bus fare in India is cheap. But travelling is tough. People packed into train and buses. They have more pains on bad roads in rural areas. They pushed here and there inside a vehicle. When one person want to get off from the bus others in bus face troubles.  This is a rainy day. Rivers are full of water. People can't cross rivers because there are no bridges. Fields are full of disgusting animals like crabs and snails. So travelling becomes more harder. Father and son want to reach for a funeral. But travelling is difficult.  India is still a developing country. Infrastructure Facilities in that country are no good. It is tedious and time wasting. That's why poet says " going through all this '' It shows the extent of difficultness. It was a menace for both father and son. They become late for funeral. Both father and son are very difficult to reach destination. Gra...

 In Ezekiel's Night Of The Scorpion we meet the poem  in free verse.  In comparison with the Eliot's Preludes   there is a minor difference between Eliot and Ezekiel too. Eliot in keeping with the traditional practice of writing poetry, begins his lines with capital letters. Ezekiel does not do that. He uses capital letters only for the beginning of sentences. This is a new practice initiated to poetry in the twentieth century. That however is only a minor structural difference. Another  difference we can observe is the absence of stanzas in the poem. The whole incident is narrated in one chunk of a passage. Only the mother's comment, which does not form a part of the incident is given separately. This is right because them other's comment is the only lyrical part of the poem. It carries the mother's love with it. The rest of the poem is narrative. And also poem has understandable absence of regular rhythm and rhyme.  The poem is not lyric. It is narra...

  A scorpion bit the poet's mother in a heavily rainy night. The Indian Neighbors flock around her to treat her. Their treatments were rather weird and primitive. The poet's father tried more sophisticated methods but to no avail. The mother suffered for twenty hours till poison in her lost its siting. At the end the mother said: '' Thank God the scorpion pricked on me and spared my children. The mood or tone carries throughout the poem is reflective. This poem has religious and superstitious background and the message of genuine motherhood. The conflict of the poem carries how scorpion stung a mother, how she protect from it and what kind of a love mother has towards children. Dark and evil side of this poem is the image of poisonous tail. Also sun baked walls and the night are cruel images. The poem carries spatial setting of an Indian countryside. This poem carries situation in a night time and wet climate after rain. Poet remembered his past childhood memories. Scor...