When poetry is a tool of social change…
Tusar Talukder reads purpose-driven poetry
Expect a book of poetry, dealing with some issues which make us think about why human civilization repeatedly fails to be humane. Binoy Barman, a poet surely different from his other contemporaries, searches for the causes of this failure throughout his latest poetry collection, namely, Binimoye Takey Tumi Katotuku Dao. What makes Binoy different is his belief that he thinks poetry is a quintessential tool which, without an iota of doubt, can bring forth our most expected social changes. He never agrees with those who invariably seek beauty in poetry. While going through the poems of this collection, I passionately felt the experimentation Binoy went through in writing the poems. Readers, if you follow the style of Binoy, it will be clear that his conscious state of mind has accelerated him into writing those poems rather than the sub-conscious. A few months ago, I attended a seminar organized by The Daily Star in honour of Ross Southerland, a contemporary English poet, who as a keynote speaker at that seminar said the conscious state of mind helps him much more than the subconscious state while composing poetry. I think this saying is also applicable to the verses of Binoy Barman. Having been influenced by the philosophy of Buddha, Binoy Barman wrote a number of poems, captured in the beginning pages of the book. De facto, 'Killing animals is a grave sin', the greatest saying of Buddha, has been the real essence behind those compositions. Nevertheless, the view is personal; he strongly believes that the universe is not only created for human beings but rather is a place for all created beings. If a particular species desires to exercise power over other species, the universe would be dysfunctional. He also holds the opinion that human beings have been the most powerful species in terms of knowledge and weapons through the passage of history. Therefore human beings as a superior species have that strength to destroy other inferior beings. However, human beings must not do that for the sake of maintaining the natural equilibrium of Earth. Binoy firmly believes that to kill animals unnecessarily drags human beings into the state of ferocious animals. Let me go into a bit of detail about the poetry, leaving behind philosophy for the time being. All the poems are presented with geometrical drawings purporting to some parts of the human body. The symbols used in the drawings wipe out the differences between human beings and animals. Human beings are still animals, as a poem shows human beings are unable to prove their superiority because their behaviour is very similar to that of animals. The very last lines support my last sentence: “Like animals, human beings are trivial Destroying the nature, grabs the win Human beings are human beings due to their clothes But under the clothes it has a naked identity†Binoy Barman raises a question by composing the poem, 'Love': Where does love really reside? Does it reside in our body or mind? The synopsis of the poem delineates that love barely resides in our mind; it rather sinuously plays in our body. Overall, the chemistry of love always produces a lot of valid questions and at the same time, in most cases, those queries remain unsolved. Poets are neglected; a man who composes poetry has become a laughable one in the eyes of many classes of people in our society. The idea is portrayed in the poem 'Someone'. But at the end of the poem, Binoy informs the readers, borrowing from Jibanananda, that some are poets, not all. Then he also adds a confessional note that he is included in those 'all' and is still unable to be included in those 'some'. This composition ironically shows us both the power of poetry as well as of the poet. 'Bad Time', a poem written in memory of Humayun Azad, exposes the truth that we have still been unable to exercise full and final freedom of writing, thus indicating that animals like beings (human beings) attacked our eminent writer Humayun Azad but we had no way to save him but cry. Which is why the poet asserts that we need to have full freedom of our pen. Binoy Barman personally believes in optimism. Most of his poems open on a sad note but ends on an optimistic one. To be honest, his entire collection follows this style. The very last poem, 'Last Words', written on being inspired by Rabindranath Tagore, informs us that though we stumble, we still have ways of coming out of the confined tunnel of destruction. Binoy Barman thinks that poetry can show people the ways of leading an ideal and smooth life. He assumes poetry can influence us positively. Through poetry he asserts that despite having negative aspects in our life we still have ways to overcome those by embracing humanity. He never accepts the negativities of life as ingredients of his poems, but portrays the negative sides of life as the causes of our contemporary demeaning state of existence. As a poet, he always likes to maintain the rhyme pattern. If Robert Frost's belief that writing poetry without rhymes is like playing tennis without the net is considered to be true, the poetry of Binoy turns out to be truly reader-friendly. In essence, I must say that Binoy Barman strongly believes poetry can play a substantial role in building a world full of love. Binoy Barman's thoughts are evocative of P. B. Shelley's philosophy. So a line can relevantly be quoted from Shelley: If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
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