Vvb Rama Rao’s Review Of Winged Reason

K. V. Dominic. Winged Reason (Collection of Poems). New Delhi: Authorspress, 2010. pp78. Paper Back. Price Rs 95. ISBN 978-81-7273-530-2

Dr. V. V. B. Rama Rao

         K. V. Dominic is an academic and a renowned editor.  By profession he is a professor of English literature and by temperament a poet and humanist.  The little volume under review is a collection of thirty-nine poems, the very first of the poet’s publication.  The very simplicity and the brevity of all the poems recommend themselves to readers as an intimate communication of authentic feelings expressed with a delicate sensibility.  There are no pretensions, no verbosity or attempts at obfuscation for creating a false impression. The poet’s main themes are compassion and social iniquity.  There is an elegiac mood running through some of the poems in this collection.  The depth and intensity of the poet’s concern for basic human values convinces the reader of the piety of the poet’s feelings.  A few examples would be enough to convince the prospective reader of the value of the poet’s cerebration and cogitation.

The poems written with an elegiac purport are occasioned by the sudden demise of a friend and colleague involved in an automobile crash and the passing away of the thrice Chief Minister of Kerala, E.K.Nayanar, a man loved by the masses. Then there is a poem “Kaumudi Teacher is No More.” 

The poet’s yearning is for a blissful poetic voyage:

                                             Let my mind soar high

                                            on the wings of the Muses

                                            and visit the places 

                                            inaccessible.  (“A Blissful Voyage” 21)

The poet’s pain and anguish are found again and again and along with his deep yearning too:

                                             If I could fly like an angel

                                             . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

                                             I’d meet Gandhi too

                        Who is weeping at his shattered dreams. (“A Blissful Voyage” 21)

The actuality around is a nightmare for the poet–for any thinking man, in fact.

                               I could view the cry of the obese boy

                              whose mother was beating him to eat more

                              A cry of a different note was heard from the next door,

                              where a bony child was crying for a crumb. (“A Nightmare” 22)

         “A Sheep’s Wail” is again a cry of anguish that the sheep is shorn, drained dry of milk, and butchered to serve gluttons.  A poor boy in tattered clothes draws tears from the compassionate poet.  Bhavabhuti, the great Sanskrit poet, once averred: Eko rasah karunNaEva’. : the only poetic-aesthetic feeling is compassion.  The untranslatable Sanskrit word aardrata roughly means the ‘wetness’ of the heart, the authentic manifestation of karuNa.  “A Sheep’s Wail” produces as much aardrata as the poem “Anand’s Lot” communicates.

Dominic’s poems are permeated with aardrata.  For a first collection, this is very promising and readers look forward to reading more of his poetry in the years to come.  Cerebration refines and ennobles as we see in the poem “My Teenage Hobby”:

                                         No more did I angle;

                                         Reflections on life

                                        Became my pastime. (48)

Illustrations by K. K. Anas enrich the little volume with their sensibility and appositeness.

Dr. V. V. B. Rama Rao (Acclaimed English Poet, Critic), Uttar Pradesh, India.

Dr. V. V. B. Rama Rao, a retired ELT Professional, Indian English poet and critic who has several books to his credit, lives in Noida.  Add: D-87 NTPC Shorya, Sector-33 Noida-7 (U.P.), India.