The Stoneleaf

Observations from a yet another vantage point. About anything, that Matters!

Name:
Location: India

I am what I am, thats what I am!
Dreamer, Maverick, Socially Unacceptable!!

I...
I am the Ego, the ego supreme
I am Somnus, source of your dreams
I am the Sound, when silence screams
I am Everything, all that has been

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Free Verse and a New Year...

I would admit that the title is obscure and conveys no information, just like titles are wont to. But this sudden coming-back-to-life after shaking the shackles of procrastination is catalysed by an 18-year young girl, more correctly a woman. But to be precise, she is somewhere between the two frames of being a giggly girl and a graceful woman. She, is in transit, very much like the blur of the verdant landscape between the dark eyes that peer from the inside the barred windows of a moving train and the stabler slower mountains in the distance.

She sent me a poem today. More than the words, it was the form that set me thinking. You see, 18 is a wonderful age. It is the time when there is courage and the optimism of youth, unbeaten and unconditioned by the ravages of happenstance. When almost everything pales in comparison to the expectation. And it is the time when expression invariably finds its utterance in poetry. The form always free.

Free Verse revolutionized the concept of poetry. It brought the esoteric to the masses, but stopped just short of making the arcane inane. Anyone who had the idea, the inspiration and the words to freeze the feeling could take a dip in this ocean and bring out his own oyster. Sometimes with pearls and most of the times with dirt. But the quest is not for the pearls, it isn't even for the oysters, but for just one moment within the folds of the muse, sorrounded by her watery arms and fluid fingers. It is for the satisfaction of creating something that has residual beauty. Even if only its creator could behold and witness that.

Some argue, free verse is too similar to prose. I myself found it insane to break sentences into fragments, and split it into different lines, for the effect of creating a poem. But then with time I started distinguishing between the two, and realizing at the same time that a poem is a very personal experience put out to share with others. It is an attempt to say the unsaid, to talk the unheard. Sometimes the original thought is lost in translation, and reader reads his own version. This is the ability of poetry. To transcend from one personal perspective to the other, sometimes retaining its form, at other times melting into the other self.

She had raised the same question, about what demarcates the poem from the prose and where does the muse figure in. And so I told her that a poem is a poem, and prose is all that is not. And a muse is aah... the hardest to define, but she is the one who touches your soul and leaves behind an inspiration that somehow bursts free in the form of words. Poetry is when long suppressed solitudes of the soul find utterance.

And when the verse runs free without limits or boundaries like a flooded river into the great plains, then my dear reader, is the free verse born. Free to touch the limits of your skies, or perhaps the writer's.

All this while the New Year has crawled into our lives. The last digit of the dates have changed, and I am yet to practice the '07 figure in places where I have to sign. Alas the calendar dates dont work like free verse. And some rules are yet to be followed, even if each day is a long poem in itself.

Note: For you Vipz

24 Comments:

Blogger Anki said...

"18 is a wonderful age. It is the time when there is courage and the optimism of youth, unbeaten and unconditioned by the ravages of happenstance."

:)

were you such a unbeaten courageous soul..i wonder

cheers.. to free verse.. and expressing oneself..

January 12, 2007 12:00 AM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Anki: Well i think i was, were'nt you? (though women mature faster than men). And that too is a fact, ki tab tak ek do dhakke kha chuka tha main, lekin dil mein tab bhi wahi tha, ki duniya jeet lenge. Aaj iraadon ko zaraa jang si lag gayi hai.

January 12, 2007 9:46 AM  
Blogger Winged Fantasy said...

No its not a forgotten blog. I came here everyday, but since the post was dedicated to someone, did not want to comment first :-)

hmmm 18 is a wonderful year... and girl-woman the most beautiful phase of life.

As a child, I always used to think that poetry is in rhyme... I used to see poetry in the structure of a poem... In-fact I wrote a little rhyme in my 5th std about "the crescent moon" and about "a dog chasing me"... ofcourse the rhyme pattern was aa,bb,cc,dd...

And then slowly it dawned that poetry can be seen in prose too... Poetry can be in words, in thought, in imagination, in every bit of nature and I guess thats when I started searching for poetry within me.

btw loved ur explanation of Poetry, prose and muse. well said :-)

January 12, 2007 11:12 AM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Minakshi: Dedication, well that too is a strong word. :-) And i guess this girl Vipz, does not believe in commenting, thus what you were waiting for was never coming.

So wait not
we know not
when life twists
to turn the plot.

That you were able to write a rhyme poem is a sign that you could write, most of us are scraed to do so. And hence the salvation in the form of the free verse.

As for the poetry and muse part, that is my fav too.

January 12, 2007 11:51 AM  
Blogger Winged Fantasy said...

hmmm Dedication (Samarpan) is a strong word, "For" is the word you used... so allow me correct that.

Aah and I guess I am in that waiting mode these days ;-)

I dont know, but ever since I got acquainted with free verse, I find it more powerful than a well-structured rhyme poem. And difficult to write, for it so easily crosses the line and becomes prose.

January 12, 2007 12:36 PM  
Blogger ± said...

arre waah....tareekh wala twist awesome tha.
otherwise i cant write poetry (or prose, rhyming or not, versed or not, muse or without) to save my life.
but you really string it with words dude (story, poetry or prose, rhyming or not, versed or not, muse or without).

rock on...

January 12, 2007 2:20 PM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Minakshi: Bingo! There you go. :-)

What is this wait for
and what is it like;
a muse, another use, or
providence to strike?

And well i agree with you on the thin line between free verse and prose, but that shall always be there. So those who can pursue beauty will, and those who are there to express will do the same. Hai na?

January 12, 2007 2:31 PM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Harjee: Yaar kya time pe entry maari hai! Aur tujhe toh badaa waala THANKYOU hai ji!

And sirji, aap behtareen kisse likhte ho, toh jyaada humble-shumble mat bano. :D Aur kuch likho apne blog pe.

And since there is no comment box there, i'll tell you here, that 'Jharokha' was awesome.

January 12, 2007 2:39 PM  
Blogger Winged Fantasy said...

How do I define this wait?
Its a rather doleful state...
No muse or providence strike,
A stagnated suspension-like...

Haan sach hai... waakai... Prose and free verse are like twins, similar in their appearance while different identities.

January 12, 2007 4:29 PM  
Blogger d4u said...

Interestin...turning over a new leaf i guess:)

January 14, 2007 4:49 PM  
Blogger Flying Machine said...

Opps! guess I haven't checked ur blog for some time now. 3 posts since last I came here.

I am all for free verse. Thats how thots are free, they dont follow a pattern and sometimes poetry too. And all that you can not say with prose can be said with poetry, especially when it is free verse.

I am doing close to great.

January 14, 2007 5:42 PM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Minakshi: I liked the doleful state part. :-).
And then, you said it.

@d4u: Na re, the leaf is old. Just that spring is around the corner. :-)

@Bhagya: I myself, had not. :-) Welcome back! And touche.

January 15, 2007 9:30 AM  
Blogger Ravali said...

it better not be payal.

January 19, 2007 3:31 AM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Ravali: Arre likha hai na 'Vipz'. Tum bhi na. :-)

January 19, 2007 11:46 AM  
Blogger Aks said...

Visited this blog for the first time. I have been writting for quite sometime now but time and again I am countered by some thoughts. Thoughts which question about the form and the way in which I write, free verse, lines which anyone else may or may not be able to connect to and with those I end up giving upon writting as well. This post of yours certainly have all the answers to my questions.
You have a very structured thought process (something I miss so badly in me :-) ) and above all your lines show the amount of confidence you have in what you are saying.
Good write up !!

January 20, 2007 10:33 AM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Aks: Thank you for the visit. I am glad you found your answers here. Though i believe youy could have found them anywhere you pleased, for essentially they are all within. All of us need a cue, a little spark of catalysm and the rest follows. That you found your spark here, makes writing this worth it.
:-)

January 22, 2007 9:13 AM  
Blogger aria said...

Umm .. they all require considerable amount of imaginative energy .. I like the rhyming ones actually .. heh .. but anyways .. what matters by the end of it all is the range of effect it produces on the readers ... and I think if it succeeds in that department .. the form doesnt matter ..

Btw your writing is very much potery masquerading as prose ... do you write poems ? Tried to search them here on the blogs .. but couldn't ..

February 09, 2007 6:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

scares me.. big thoughts and bigg words.. and so much analysis on how words come and go..

inmood for something lighter.. back to aksar for a moment dude..

February 12, 2007 9:06 PM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Aria: You said it, it is the association with the reader that makes or breaks a poem.

Everything really is a kind of camouflage. But I do, do poetry, the link is on my other blog. I think you have been earlier to FireToAshes.

Thanks for visiting.

@Me: So when do you come back?

February 14, 2007 3:23 PM  
Blogger Anki said...

Calls are being diverted.. and free verses are waiting..
how long are we to wait?

kahan ho aajkal?

March 22, 2007 11:05 AM  
Blogger d4u said...

So wheres the writer??:) been really long!!!

April 06, 2007 11:54 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Kahan gayab ho gaye bhaiya ji ;) Itna bhi kya kaam hai ??

April 16, 2007 6:03 PM  
Blogger AakASH!!! said...

@Anki: Wait is the other name for my life. But i hate making you wait. Will write, when its right. Am back to Gurgaon.

@d4u: Lost. Totally lost. Its good to see you!

@Vibhanshu: Kaam toh itna nahin, lekin kuch toh sahi nahin hai.

April 16, 2007 7:06 PM  
Blogger My Unfinished Life said...

**18 is a wonderful age**
yuppsss 18 till i die...:)

i though think 16 is the best age to be .... coz thats my age!!!

August 07, 2007 3:46 PM  

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