Beauty and Mystery: At Its Best

Poetry means different things to different people.  To me, it is a world of verse that stretches from a 3-line haiku to a book-length epic.  The best way to sense its spread and depth is to take in the following three quotes:

• 'Poetry is a mirror, which makes beautiful that which is distorted.'    -  Percy Shelley

• 'There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create!'  -  C Baudelaire

• 'Writing poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon... and waiting for the echo.'  -  Don Marquis

Great thoughts! This is what makes poetry both beautiful and mysterious.

There was a time when poets were expected to fit their verses within the framework of rules.  Although with time, this perception has changed, the issue has remained debatable.  It would not therefore be out of place to revisit some of the rules viewed as sacrosanct even today.

Acrostic 

Here, the first letters of each line combine to spell a word vertically down the poem.

'Gather information in lightning speed

One perfect search engine sufficed the need

Our transport machine in this time and space

Get events, facts and ads in wise displays

Look! Everything is in our fingertips!

Expansive knowledge now all within grips.'

- David J Serana

Cinquain 

Cinquain has 5 lines. The first one has just 1 word, usually the title of the poem. The second has 2 words that describes the first line. The action is narrated in the the third line in 3 words. The fourth has 4 words to convey the feeling. And the fifth and final line has 1 word that refers to the theme.

'Tree

Tall, Green

Growing, reaching, standing

Witness to the past

Future'

Clerihew 

Invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, this form of poetry commonly referred to as a Quatrain has 4 lines in a stanza, of which the second and fourth lines rhyme, displaying a similar syllable structure.

'Sir Christopher Wren

Said, 'I am going to dine with some men.

If anyone calls

Say I am designing St. Pauls.'

- Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Couplet

The most popular type of poetry, the Couplet has stanzas made up of two lines which rhyme with each other. 

 

'As long as men can breathe, and eyes can see

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.' 

- –William Shakespeare

Haiku

The Haiku originated in Japan. It has three lines having 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively. The poem that generally relates to nature, does not rhyme. 

 

'I love Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh loves to eat honey
Bees chase Winnie the Pooh.'

Limerick

A limerick is a humorous poem having 5 lines in a specific pattern. Lines 1, 2 and 5 are long, whereas lines 3 and 4 are shorter. However, all the lines rhyme with each other.

'There once was a woman of ice
She never knew how to be nice
She spent all of her life
on the edge of a knife
cutting herself off from advice.'

- Paul McCann

Free Verse

To hell with rhyme, rhythm and rule! The Free Verse is all about freedom of style. Express your thoughts freely. Many modern poets seem to prefer this type of poetry. 

 

'I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.'

- Walt Whitman

Sonnet 
It is a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter. The earliest form, 'Petrarchan sonnet' named after the Italian poet Petrarch has two stanzas: an octave (eight lines) followed by a sestet (six lines). The octave presents an argument or an observation, while the sestet counter argues or clarifies. Henry Howard who translated many of the Petrarchan sonnets into English, later modified the structure into a new format having three quatrains followed by a couplet. This came to be known as the Shakespearean sonnet.

'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.'

–William Shakespeare

A poem is born out of spontaneous inspiration. In reality, inspiration does not follow any rule. However, the fact that a set of rules in any activity invariably brings in essential discipline, cannot be wished away. That must be why Robert Frost once said:

"Writing Free Verse is like 
playing tennis with the net down." 

- Robert Frost

'Personalities Die, But Not Causes'

In 1957 when V K Krishna Menon became the Defence Minister, Indian army’s main weapon was the World War-1 Lee-Enfield rifle. A few squadrons of vintage Canberra, Hunter and Vampire adorned the Indian Air Force. Our defence budget was a 'princely' Rs 305 crores! 

Menon aimed to bring about quick and effective changes. His proposals however, were blocked by political opponents. Speaking on the 1957 Defence Budget, J B Kripalani said, 'The mounting defence expenses must be cut down. The followers of Gandhi and adherents of universal peace cannot increase military expenditure.' Morarji Desai, the then Finance Minister was only too happy to support this argument.

Refusing to be browbeaten, Menon decided to explore surplus production resources within the defence set up to manufacture kettles and cookers, sell them in the open market, and raise funds for his modernisation plans. Unable to comprehend the ingenuity or purpose behind this plan, his detractors alleged that Menon had dismantled the Ishapore Rifle Factory to manufacture coffee-pots!

But nothing could stop Menon in his efforts to create a modern and self-reliant defence structure. The Avadi Heavy Vehicle factory, HAL, Bharat Electronics, production facilities for Avro aircraft and Leander Frigates, research centres like the DRDO, ADE and so on bear testimony to his great vision. Armament factories were set up in remote locations for tactical reasons. Salaries of defence personnel were raised. Such was his involvement that Menon even established a chain of Sainik Schools to prepare the youth for entry into the prestigious National Defence Academy. He also made NCC training compulsory at the school level.

Krishna Menon pioneered India's missiles programme by constituting a study team named SWDT (Special Weapon Development Team). In 1960, he inaugurated the DSL (Defence Science Laboratory) and a year later, the DRDL (Defence Research & Development Laboratory) marking the beginning of an ambitious programme. Menon's initiatives in due course not only helped India develop guided missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but also become the seventh country to launch space crafts and satellites.

Menon's passion for defence projects finds mention in Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam's biography. Then a senior scientist at the DRDO, Dr. Kalam recalls how Menon, delighted at seeing a prototype hovercraft, chose to ride in it with Dr. Kalam at the controls, brushing aside all concern about safety.

People who criticise Krishna Menon for India's failure in countering the Chinese aggression in 1962, forget that within three years of this debacle, we won a major war against Pakistan, and six years later a hugely successful military operation in East Pakistan (now Bangla Desh). Today, if any one believes that soon after Menon's exit, the 'mismanaged' defence set-up went into an 'auto-correction' mode, that too in those days of tardy five-year plans and obstructive red-tapism to win two spectacular victories, it would be ridiculing one's own rationale, reasoning and sense of judgement.

Menon was elected to the Parliament thrice (North Bombay in 1962, Midnapore in 1969, and Trivandrum in 1971), perhaps the only one to have represented India form the East, West and the South. He died at the age of 78 on 6 October 1974. Menon-bashing soon became the pastime of self-styled historians and super scribes. Yet, the British media resentful of Menon for his role in the UN during the Suez Canal crisis, gracefully applauded his statesmanship thus:

"In retrospect, the plan presented by Krishna Menon would have salvaged more for British interests than was eventually 
gained (or lost) by force."

- Time Magazine 

Click below to read the earlier parts of this story:

V K Krishna Menon - Part 1                V K Krishna Menon - Part 11

He Had Nothing to Flaunt, Except Genius

 In continuation of

  Loved by Few, Hated by Many & Feared by All

        V K Krishna Menon was an extraordinary person. Aggressive and over- bearing, contemptuous of fools and pseudo-intellectuals, he went on making enemies, caring little for his name or image. The West hated him for his stinging retorts and biting sarcasm, and gave him such choicest epithets as the 'Devil's incarnate', 'Snake charmer' and 'Mephistopheles in a Saville row suit.' Yet, the world listened with rapt attention when he spoke, because of his sound reasoning, quick repartees and power-packed eloquence. 

          Today, as India, devoid of imagination or determination, goes about strutting and stumbling in its international engagements, 'Menon and Menonism' keep returning. Read, how he summarily put in place some of the bullying brow-beaters who strode the diplomatic scene in those days. 

*

A British parliamentarian once boasted, 'Remember. The Sun never sets on the British Empire.'
Menon: 'That’s because not even God trusts the British in the dark!'

*

John Foster Dulles, the US secretary of state once justified that arms given to Pakistan was only to defend itself against a Soviet invasion.
Menon: 'The world has yet to see an American gun shoot in one direction!'

*

When India annexed Goa in 1961, Dulles severely castigated the country's action.
Menon: 'Did you expect us to send a postcard to the Pentagon seeking your approval?'

*

After a heated debate in the UN, the British delegate told, 'No hard feelings, Krishna. We have a very thick skin.'
Menon: 'I know, sir. That’s why you Britons make the best boots in the world!'

*

An Englishwoman once expressed surprise at his excellent command over English.
Menon: 'My English is better than yours, madam. because you inherited it by an accident of birth. I spent years learning it.'

*

Kennedy, the US President sent an aide with a get-well message to Menon convalescing after a brain surgery in 1961.
Menon: 'Your boss thinks I am a lunatic. You can now tell him on good authority that you've indeed seen me, and I am a man with a hole in the head!'

*

To an African delegate who once extolled Britain's international policies, Menon said: 'There's no use asking which one you could choose - British imperialism or Nazism. It's like asking a fish, if it wants to be fried in margarine or butter!'

*

Menon did not spare his detractors at home also. J B Kripalani was one who was at the receiving end of Menon's sarcasm several times. Once when he criticised Menon for not sharing with the Parliament, information about a defence deal, Menon retorted:
'I can give the respected member all the information he wants. But I am sorry I can't give him the intelligence to understand it.'

*

          His image as an intolerant and impatient man, obscured many facets of his unique personality, as well as his immeasurable contributions to building a modern India. The fact that Menon was never too enthusiastic to talk about himself or his achievements added to this mystery. What is visible is unfortunately a distorted portrait, his die-hard foes have drawn with a vengeance beyond common sense or decency.

          Click below to read further....

Krishna Menon - Part3

History is not a record of what really happens,
but what is narrated later by some in their own words