Arts » Magazine
February 6, 2010
A universe of verse
One of the most daring and important voices of contemporary Indian
poetry, Hoshang Merchant (b.1947) has published 20 books of poetry in
20 years from the Writer's Workshop, Kolkota. Other notable books
include Flower to Flame (Rupa, 1990), Yaraana: Gay Stories from India
(Penguin, 1999), Forbidden Sex/Text (Routledge, 2009).
His translation of Jameela Nishat's Urdu poems was published by
Sahitya Akademi (2008). He is presently a Professor of Poetry and Gay
Studies at the Hyderabad University where he has taught since 1987. He
holds a Ph.D. (for his dissertation on Anais Nin) from Purdue
University where he was one of the founders of Gay Liberation.
Travelling all over the world, he studied Buddhism at Dharmashala, and
Sufism in Iran and Palestine. He was in Chennai recently to kick start
the Poetry with Prakriti festival. Excerpts from an interview:
Can or should poets give interviews since the Buddha says there is no
personality?
Yes, there is no personality. I'll tell you my own example and of
Miohaux (French). I thought to become a Buddhist; I danced instead but
went back to poetry. Not Buddhist poetry, like the fourth Dalai
Lama's... I have few possessions, but I couldn't be a Buddha because I
thought too much to be some One.
Henri Michaux did not want his poetry canonised, he wouldn't even
allow himself to be photographed. He was happy the Dalai Lama saw his
photo; "Now I am in the Dalai Lama's mind." As he lay dying, he talked
to his nurse of travel. When she started to give him oxygen, "No! Let
me keep travelling," he said.
What is the aim of your poetry?
Even gay poetry's aim is NOT to change legislation. "To come out into
an objectless view/Which is the true aim of all poetry," is a
definition I use in my poems. "Objectless" does not mean "not
objective," because anyway the lyric is a subjective art.
It means that poets have no axes to grind. Their objective is the poem
itself. However we poets have to 'abstract' our experience to fit it
to the reader's experience. We all share the same space/time. Some
great poets make their own space and their times. It comes as a
surprise to know Whitman, Melville and Dickinson were gay. We do not
know them as gay poems but as Transcendentalists even after 150 years.
This transcendence is a poem.
To paraphrase Dickinson "to make a prairie/It takes fancy, a clover
and a bee/Fancy alone will do/If bees are few."
Why do you equate Dalits with gays?
Because gays, like women, are gender-Dalits. Also, there are gay
Dalits who refuse to be identified for social reasons. Both are
oppressed groups. I understand forms of oppression differ.
But oppression is oppression. For politics we need coalitions (not
only LGBT but also women and Dalits). Gays have to stop oppressing
women. Some women who oppress gays have to stop doing that. Ditto for
Dalits.
To divide minorities and prevent them from coming together in a common
platform is just another male heterosexists' ploy to preserve their
power.
My struggle is unimportant unless it also opens up a possibility for
generalised liberation and living.
Are you before your time for India?
No! The poet is always of his/her time. It is the others who are behind.
Is writing a political act?
No. But if you say you're not political that means you side with the
establishment. If you want to change your heart, mind and body then
that's politics.To say sex is a private matter is to pretend sex is
about love only and not also an exploitative.
Why do you travel so much?
I travel to get new identities. And to write about them. It is how
kids 'enjoy getting lost'. It reminds me that personality is not
solid. In a new land people don't know you, you can become whatever
you want!
What is the audience reaction to you? How does your audacity sit with them?
Mine is not a moral universe. But it is a formally beautiful universe
of verse. If I affront them I also beg their indulgence. And, mostly,
I get it!
*************************
Earth-Connection
My lover's feet are mud
Under his feet the earth, mud
I kiss his feet :
The poem in my mouth, from the
dust of his feet mud
He grew the food
I eat
Now I eat the dust of his feet
The grain came from river-mud
Now I am him: His river
And the mud
My body is made of all this earth
When I die I'll be again
all his earth
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