Hibiscus: Poems that heal and empower |
Anthology of Poems on the Covid 19 situation |
 Ed.  Kiriti Sengupta, Anu Majumdar & Dustin Pickering |
Hawakal Publishers (Kolkata / New Delhi) | May 2020 |
pp 205 | 500 / US $ 12.99

A Passage to Healing

“Can poetry heal us? Of course, it does. The importance of healing and the power of the spirit can never be hyped or ignored, for it is as integral to our living as breathing,” opines Kiriti Sengupta in the introduction (“The Silver Lining”) to his latest anthology, Hibiscus: Poems that heal and empower. It is worth mentioning that the endeavor to bring out a collection of healing poems can be envisaged only in an imaginative mind, and Sengupta, himself an acclaimed poet, has been able to work out on this project in collaboration with his co-editors: Anu Majumder and Dustin Pickering. And this triumvirate has brought out what it is—a collection that heals and empowers.

The year 2020 has been an eye-opener to the world, and poetry too has opened up arenas to cope with the new normal norms, thereby giving a cathartic effect to bring about “calm of mind” in Miltonic terms. “The Silver Lining” hints at the ameliorating impact of poetry at its outset, as Sengupta writes: “Hibiscus won’t only communicate the plight—it will mitigate our struggle back to normalcy,” reinforced by the prophetic gesture of Chris Fitzpatrick, a consultant obstetrician and gynecologist: “In time, we will need poets and writers of the imagination to look through the looking glass—and tell us the stories of this strange, upside-down world.”

The world has become topsy-turvy in the COVID-19 scenario posing a severe threat to our existence. We are in the queue for the COVID vaccine that can save the world. But at the same time, we must admit that poetry has that sustainable effect to look through the mirror and prepare us for the odds of life. This collection, too, carries the message of recuperation of the poems being persuasive rhetoric of life itself.

“War's annals will cloud into night / ere their story die”—these prophetic lines of Thomas Hardy unobtrusively reveal the triumph of love even “in time of ‘The Breaking of Nations.’” The poetic resonance is also felt in the poem of Amit Shankar Saha—the poet delineates a post-pandemic world where he enjoys a walk with his beloved: “The day we went walking / by the lake you spoke of the pandemic / and how we recovered from it” (“An Imagined Walk,” p 26). Saha also envisions a healing winter when “we all are becoming sunlight / atom by atom, / photon by photon / towards a winter of healing” (“Winter Bloom,” p 27).

It is painstaking to be alone, and the COVID-19 has enforced this loneliness making us “cabined, cribbed and confined” as if in a solitary cell, and we have to come to terms with an indefinite lockdown, silencing our desires altogether. This alarming alacrity of our existence has been beautifully woven by Ananya S Guha when he writes: “Silence COVID has come / Not to leave / To do / Not to die / Silence / My mind is brittle / Take care I write to a friend / Take care” (“Silence,” p 28). The nights are unending now as if “night stole into day through a tunnel of conspiracy worming its way into the sanctum of our peace havens like lava flowing through labyrinthine scripts of gunfire...” (“Night stole into Day” by Bina Sarkar Ellias, p 46).

There must be a recluse from this dizzy darkness and poetry with its curative impact re-asserts that “there would surely be a morning,” “When the decimated fortunes / would again reap the fruits of / recalibrated times” (“Awaiting” by Basab Mondal, p 39). Each new morn comes with fresh fears—images of death permeate our soul, and we succumb to a perennial paranoia. Yet, we must find “the nectar in a sieve” where “the knitter pulls her hair back / in a bandana and spreads / her craft out on a table.” The poet asserts, “There is no death where mandalas / flow in turquoise taking in / our human tears” (“Knitting the Universe” by Carolyn Gregory, p 48).

“When we heal the earth, we heal ourselves”—this axiomatic statement hints at the deadening gloom pervading the earth and the necessity to heal the mother earth to save ourselves. The destruction of nature has paved the way to this devastation, where we are only numbers, awaiting the toll of death. Yet we are in search of the aroma, “a silver of light,” which can break the “winter-weary shell / and the dark gives rise to green” (“First Light” by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins, p 55). COVID catastrophe has left us to live like strange creatures, with nobody to cling to even in moments of despair—grief rolls on, we are mere onlookers beholding fearful faces: “Nothing to clutch onto here; not a straw; / no theory to string along / as we whiz past shadows / with no fairy tales or deja vu moments” (“Nowhere To Fall” by Gayatri Majumdar, p 58).

Poetry being a poignant expression of life, tries to introspect the myriad shades, delineating the bleak and the bizarre in the most euphemistic fashion: “Evidence suggests / intellect ain’t contagious / in males as COVID,” Gerard Sarnat goes on to the extent of hinting at the racial discrimination which is more virulent than COVID itself: “silver lining's southern fat / white racists may die” (“Smoke this Sickness,” p 61). Hibiscus blooms amidst anxiety and shoots its branches encompassing a panoramic presentation of life. The poet, at times, is a silent observer looking up at “the tower clock” when time moves on its own accord giving way to an all-pervading silence. There is no clear line of demarcation between time past and time present—it is only the sound of rain “dissecting love / of now and beyond” and the sun is envisaged as a healer who “engraves a smile in burnt lips / everyone is cleansed forever” (“Vista” by Gopal Lahiri, p 63).

As the editor’s note says, this is an anthology to heal and empower, Jagari Mukherjee unmistakably pinpoints the twin aspects with equally striking color symbolism and imagery, likening the moon to a “sickle,” or like an Impressionist painter, she envisions a “bottle-green butterfly.” Poetry, with its healing touch, helps her to recuperate: “From my verandah, quarantined, / I watch the hibiscus tree, / adorned with red flowers. / It is raining. The flowers shine. / I observe water drips cleanse / the hibiscus like tears. / I am sure I won't need /any more medicines soon” (“Healing,” p 69). As the anthology progresses, the readers find an interwoven texture of life force in terms of imagery and wordplay. Joan Leotta’s poem, for instance, adhering to the title of the anthology itself, depicts the tree as a symbol of hope and joy, as is inherent in the connotation of the tree: “I carried it with love to my dear cousin, / glad to endow her new home / with a flower embodying the / hope and joy of dawn” (“Hibiscus,” p 76).

Suffering must give way to a ray of hope for us to survive, and despite the unbeaten lash of the COVID, we hope to be regenerated once more, and poetry can help us rise from hibernation. John P. Drudge writes: “In the ash of suffering / A phoenix is born / In the embers / Of compassion / We become free” (“Listening to Ashes,” p 80). The journey from innocence to experience has always been a favorite motif for poetry. Metaphorically, our walk with the virus, too, is a voyage from innocence to experience, with the coinage of new words, making us homebound to familiarize with “lockdown blues,” wearing a “face mask” and to “stay 6-feet apart / walking along the Columbia River” (“Lockdown Blues” by Katacha Diaz, p 84). Poetry has been undergoing changes, form and content-wise, in keeping with the need of the hour and Hibiscus attempts to deliver a graphic presentation of pandemic paradigm, showcasing silence as a powerful weapon to fight against the impending gloom: “No battle is a full truth / Time decides on its fate” (“Through the Ceilings of Silences” by Jaydeep Sarangi, p 71).

“How many roads must a man walk down?”  The answer might be blown in the wind, but before that, we must struggle to survive: “Hundreds walk, / where the roads end and the tenderness of home awaits. / …but the greasy little palm and the fingers know / somehow it will survive the walk” (“Survival” by Mallika Bhaumik, p 91). We are to cling to the “green roads” to breathe in an enclosed ambit where words too “are confined / locked up” (“The Green Iron Rods” by Nishi Pulugurtha, p 120). A dark pallor perpetuates our soul at times when we can only think of “nothing but insomnia and gastroenteritis.” And “the night swells and so does his belly” (“Lockdown” by Ranu Uniyal, p 136).

It seems the COVID has entered our soul. We are entrapped in an unflinching battle, destroying our existential equipoise: “On the darkest night, when doubts ran high / And your soul was consumed with shame / You opened a door that showed you the light / A blaze, an inferno” (“Epiflany” by Shreya Sen Handley, p 155). Even in flame, there is light and darkness, which must give way to a lucent light to reinforce our sense of togetherness, breaking the COVID chain and form “the human chain” instead, defying death, as “Death can only threaten us / Before it dies” (“Healing Power” by Sanjukta Sengupta, p 145). The wheel comes full circle when joy and sorrow move in a rotation: chakravat parivartante sukhani cha dukhani cha. The world will inevitably move towards redemption, and we are to wait with patience to “observe the emancipation / of the yellowed tales / from the underlined / chronicles of our march” (“Emancipation” by Utpal Chakraborty, p 178).

The world, baffled with much despair, needs healers, and this is what this anthology aims at. The poems sharply focus on cross-cultural diversities with a defined design to portray a turmoil-free world. Healing precedes empowerment, and this collection adheres to the twin aspects of healing and empowerment quite unequivocally, in terms of images often drawn from the COVID contours. As Kiriti Sengupta, the chief editor, writes in the preamble, “Wounds are impressive: they bleed, itch, ache and enlighten…Hibiscus will assuage the bruises of the spirit.” The show must go on, and poetry will find its course amidst turbulence. Let the hibiscus bloom to heal our sorrows.