Observing nature and writing poetry
Mustaqim Kazi is impressed with the literary seasonal
PUBLISHED from America, Madonna of the Rain is the debut collection of English poems by poet Rabiul Hasan, now living in America and working as a teacher of English at Southern University in the state of Louisiana. Poet Rabiul Hasan writes poetry in Bengali as well and has published two collections of poems in the language. He has three books of short stories in Bengali also. However, going through the poems of Madonna of the Rain, this reviewer has found that poet Rabiul Hasan is most brilliant when he paints scenes, mostly of nature. "Madonna of the Rain is a poetry collection for all seasons," the publisher's blurb on the back page of the book notes. And indeed he is. The very first poem, entitled "Summer Evenings in the Mississippi Delta", beautifully captures the evening scene in the region. The presentation of the evening scene is realistic and draws the admirable attention of the reader. Here is the whole poem for readers: The sun had set in, the fields heavy with muffled sound / A dog hibernates by the garbage truck / Two Negro women become shadows beside the hogsties / The skies turn the color of their breasts / The magnolias dies for rainclouds / The cottonpickers gasp on the railroad tracks / The haystacks burn in the fallows / In the brushwoods an army of insects buzz/ I see their eyes glowing in the dark. The next poem, "Autumn 1980: Mississippi", is a prose poem and takes you to an autumn evening in Mississippi: Flivvers loaded with frolicsome faces rumble down the gravelled country road. The sun wears out: burn swallows twitter in their nests. Dragonflies drift in the breeze, flies buzz in the strawberries, ants mill about the cider-press. Broken corn blades blown by the wind abound along the road to the grain elevator …" Unlike the previous poem, "Summer Evenings in the Mississippi Delta", where one finds the atmosphere is parched and dry, in this prose poem the poet paints a picture of contentment, "where my mother and Marianne, my girl, are threshing in the Harvest Moon." Even as he has been painting natural and realistic scenes, Rabiul Hasan has been writing poetry in English for a long time; and all the poems in Madonna of the Rain have been published in different reputable international journals. These journals include Writer's Forum, Widener Review, Coe Review, The Macguffin, The Texas Observer, Borderlands, The Mochila Review, Wind, The Black Fly Review, Images, Poet Lore, Permafrost, Aura Literary Arts Review, RiverSedge, Eclipse, Blue Light Review, Visions, and Louisiana English Journals. However, the very titles of the poems in Madonna of the Rain tell us that poet Rabiul Hasan is a nature observer. "On a Moonlit December Night Near Charleston, Mississippi", "December Snow", "Landscape Near Columbus", "Sandra Williams in December", "Snowfall in Columbus", "Christmas Night, 1979, With a Friend at a Nightclub in Columbus, Mississippi," "A Dream of a Fair Woman on a Late October Evening", "Moon Malady in May"all these suggest the poet's preoccupation with the seasons as well as Mississippi. The title poem, "Madonna of the Rain", is a superb piece and describes a woman whom the poet is not being able to identify: Who is she? Marianne? Michelle? Melanie? Yes, the poet can discover who she is. She is the woman of his imagination: "I know her like the dreams I have not dreamt / the falls I have not slipped / The wrongs I have not done / The lies I have not uttered / The sins I have not committed." She is the poet's ma donna (my lady). The publisher's blurb has not exaggerated things at all when it notes that 'Rabiul Hasan's insights stretch the classic Italian ma donna imagery to refreshing new fronts.' This lady figure appears in the pages of the book, reminding the reader of the realities of existence. As a whole, the poems of Madonna of the Rain are strikingly impressive and readable. Because of his remarkable mastery with words as a poet, Rabiul Hasan has earned the credit of being anthologised among a cavalcade of noted American poets and is listed in A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. One expects to come by more of such poetry from Rabiul Hasan.
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