By Willie Gordon Suting
Jasper Elias questions and probes contemporary issues of war, violence and conflict in The Infinite Dream, a collection of poems, which was released last month.
The poems lay bare the truth that it is we humans who are the sole creators of such problems that affect society. But what is sad is that we fail to understand this, mostly the consequences of war, conflict and violence.
Elias, in most of his poems, feels that we need to wake up to face these realities for it has only led to chaos, hatred and the loss of innocent lives. According to him, warfare is futile and meaningless.
What Elias does with his poems is that he creates characters out of his imagination who voice and speak out his thoughts. It is a reflection of his perspective on things, judgements which are sensible, perceptive and thoughtful. Elias creates a variety of such voices. He immerses himself into the experiences of soldiers who return from war, soldiers who are traumatised at having killed many people, soldiers in the battlefield who long to meet their wives, soldiers who realise the futility of their profession.
In the poem for example An Evening In Somerset, Elias is able to capture the naivety of the wife of a soldier, unaware that her husband had been killed in war:
“While somewhere far along the coast/By the Bristol’s mist drenched silt/In the midst of wetland willows lies/Pippa’s corporal husband killed”.
With such verses, one is reminded of the war poetry of Rupert Brooke and Louis Mac Niece. The war poets were soldiers themselves. And having gone through too many traumatic experiences in the battlefields, their poetry was a reaction to the banality of warfare.
Elias tries to convey to the reader the innocence of Pippa who lives a simple life while her husband had put his life on the line.
And Elias also tries to explain the lives of such families. A soldier goes to war not only to fight for his country but also to support his wife and children. Elias, in most poems, questions as to whether the soldier is fighting for a good political cause?
In The Element’s Ballad, Elias places himself in a soldier’s shoes, a soldier who longs to meet his wife Antheia:
“The battle is ended, I pray thee, don’t grieve/There will come a time when I shall be home/When none of my battles will cause me to roam/Then, Antheia, my princess we’re oceans apart/You’re nowhere around me but inside my heart”.
He describes the innocence and purity of love between husband and wife. There is a particular sadness in being far away from a loved one.
Elias, in the poem The Man With The Yoke, describes the realisation that comes to a soldier at having inflicted too much torture and violence on innocent people.
The soldier, in the poem, is traumatised, haunted by thoughts of a bloody handkerchief. This image of a handkerchief belongs to a woman who wiped the yoke off the face of a man who had stumbled. The soldier when trying to sleep, seeing the white bed sheet, is reminded of the handkerchief.
Most of the poems in the collection touch on issues of war. Elias, though in some poems, also describes the private and personal lives of individuals who mostly live in isolation.
Elias tries to say that humans live isolated lives with our thinking and emotions.
This leads to repression where pain and suffering is concealed from the outside world. Elias becomes the voice of such individuals who go through pain, agony and sadness.
Stylistically, the poems do not hide or conceal themes. Elias employs directness. The book is written in clear and lucid language. His poems are also reminiscent of English romantic poets of the 19th century as he usually writes with a rhyme couplet of abab.
The poems do provoke thinking in the reader, but Elias would have done well if he did not left everything in openness. The poet in all his poems evades from mentioning current political issues around the world. There is discreetness, but at times the reader would question on such subjects.
The poems are linear in construction making it simple for readers.
However, they are not well-thought out with varied layers or depths of meaning. The poems in The Infinite Dream also lack a contemporary appeal as the conformity to a simple rhyme couplet seems antiquated and outdated.
Most poems written in free verse by Elias lack a contemporary verve and sway, which would surprise the reader. There is blandness which continues from beginning to end where the meaning of the themes is easily construed.
Book: The Infinite
Dream; Author: Jasper Elias; Publisher: Notion Press; Pages: 165; Price: Rs 400
