Stammer
Stammer is no handicap:
it is a mode of speech.
Stammer is the silence that falls
between the word and its meaning,
just as lameness is the silence
that falls between the word and the deed.
Did stammer precede language
or succeed it?
Is it only a dialect
or a language itself? These questions
make the linguists stammer.
Each time we stammer,
we are offering a sacrifice
to the God of Meanings.
When a whole people stammer,
stammer becomes their mothertongue
as it is with us now.
God too must have stammered
when He created Man.
That is why each word of man
carries different meanings.
That is why everything he utters
from his prayers to his commands
stammers,
like poetry.
To Prolong the Noon
To prolong the noon I sit
sipping beer on this final beach.
The wind and I get a high as we
see in your eyes the glitter
of our first days together.
The sea, endless like death,
Takes no notice.
The refrain of birds above
like a new song earth has learnt.
My childhood is a top that got
buried in the sand even before
it had begun to revolve.
Once I heard a tempest’s echoes
in a sparrow’s twitter.
No, we cannot check
this growing chill.
Joy is a goblet
flung into the dark.
And love, a kite
put out among the clouds.
Koyamparambath Satchidanandan is a multi-awarded Indian poet and playwright writing in both Malayalam and English. Born in central Kerala, he was an English Professor, Editor of Indian Literature (the journal of the Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Literature) and is currently the Executive Head of the National Academy. He has to his credit 22 collections of poetry besides many selections.
K. Satchidanandan is one of the pioneers of modern poetry in Malayalam and is well known for the subtle and nuanced articulations of socio-political contexts in his poetry. Critics have noted narrativity, irony and philosophical contemplation on the contradictions of existence as decisive elements in his poetry. Satchidanandan has received sixteen literary awards besides many honours like the Knighthood of the Order of Merit from the Government of Italy.
Stammer is no handicap:
it is a mode of speech.
Stammer is the silence that falls
between the word and its meaning,
just as lameness is the silence
that falls between the word and the deed.
Did stammer precede language
or succeed it?
Is it only a dialect
or a language itself? These questions
make the linguists stammer.
Each time we stammer,
we are offering a sacrifice
to the God of Meanings.
When a whole people stammer,
stammer becomes their mothertongue
as it is with us now.
God too must have stammered
when He created Man.
That is why each word of man
carries different meanings.
That is why everything he utters
from his prayers to his commands
stammers,
like poetry.
To Prolong the Noon
To prolong the noon I sit
sipping beer on this final beach.
The wind and I get a high as we
see in your eyes the glitter
of our first days together.
The sea, endless like death,
Takes no notice.
The refrain of birds above
like a new song earth has learnt.
My childhood is a top that got
buried in the sand even before
it had begun to revolve.
Once I heard a tempest’s echoes
in a sparrow’s twitter.
No, we cannot check
this growing chill.
Joy is a goblet
flung into the dark.
And love, a kite
put out among the clouds.
Koyamparambath Satchidanandan is a multi-awarded Indian poet and playwright writing in both Malayalam and English. Born in central Kerala, he was an English Professor, Editor of Indian Literature (the journal of the Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Literature) and is currently the Executive Head of the National Academy. He has to his credit 22 collections of poetry besides many selections.
K. Satchidanandan is one of the pioneers of modern poetry in Malayalam and is well known for the subtle and nuanced articulations of socio-political contexts in his poetry. Critics have noted narrativity, irony and philosophical contemplation on the contradictions of existence as decisive elements in his poetry. Satchidanandan has received sixteen literary awards besides many honours like the Knighthood of the Order of Merit from the Government of Italy.
