This is what I feel about discussion of pOtana vs. say, Jayaprabha. There
is no doubt at all that Jayaprabha's poem was stirring. In fact,
Sivasankar's poem, which was posted just before on the same topic, brought
tears to my eyes - you see, I lived in those parts during that time (87-88)
and saw first hand the ravage left by nature & man. What can I say in
response to a posting of such a poem? That it was great? Appropriate, etc.?
All these comments seem meaningless in comparison to the gravity of the
situation expressed in the poem. If, on the other hand, I want to discuss
the background of the poem, I don't know enough about it to talk
intelligently, or usefully. I face the same problem if you pick up SriSri's
dESa caritralu or tilak's sainikuni uttaram. The only thing left for me to
see is if SriSri used Candas or not!:-)
In contrast, pOtana's topic was well-known to me - particularly,
gajEndramOksham. When people ask questions (like, what does this word
mean), and you know the answer, it is very hard to resist the temptation to
answer - usually what starts as a simple answer snowballs into a small
treatise if the topic is your favorite. (actually, I resisted, due to lack
of time, posting my full appreciation of pOtana's gajEndramOksham while
clarifying 'dhammillamu'). Moreover, one has heard about these things at
the knees of the grandpa, was taught in school, there are vyaakhyaanam's
available...Whereas with modern poetry, it is hard to understand the spirit
of the poem and talk about it unless the reader has some additional
knowledge of the topic. (I remember a situation in my undergrad days when
our Lit. club faculty adviser insisted on participating in the discussion
after reading only the back-cover review of gOpicand's 'asamarthuni
jeevayaatra'). My guess in this regard is - if the original poster of the
poem has raised some questions or discussion pointers while posting the
text of the poem, a discussion might have followed. In the absence of that,
for my part, I just read the poem, thought 'Wow!', saved it, and forgot all
about it!
Anyway, this rambling is the result of the mental activity triggered by
your previous post. It was true that I was piqued by the comments like "the
soul of the poem - if it has one" and "sad state of telusA". It is also
true that telusA had been devoid of stimulating conversation of late. I
hope people will be back soon from vacations, full of interesting stories
and ideas. I have been planning to start a discussion on short stories, but
kept postponing it due to work pressures. One of these days, definitely...
Regards
Nasy