![]() ![]() This mesmerising poem blends the world of the romantic and the radical together in the most endearing manner. Flies from one side of a nation to the outside Of our world. My lover leaves me with words I wish To write. What are you when you leave your man Wanting? What am I now that I think so fondly Of airplanes? What’s my name, whose is it, while we Make love. Which of us has ever loved without suffering a heartbreak, which of us has loved without realising that our love was a story concocted in our mind? This poem has seen me through many an emotional crash-landing, so here I’m sharing the wisdom. I’m putting this at the top of the list because it is my favourite poem by my favourite poet. I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. And like all love poetry, the translation started in a moment of being deeply in love, and lacking the solid support of a shared mother-tongue.ġ. My new translation of the Kāmattu-p-pāl of the Tirukkuṟaḷ, The Book of Desire, reflects this. It is a didactic text in its first two books (Morality, Materialism) – but the society it envisioned would hold itself together only by radical, life-affirming love, rapturously celebrated in the third book. ![]() This informed my readings, and rereadings of the Tirukkuṟaḷ, the 2,000-year-old collection of verses that remains a central part of Tamil literature and thought. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |