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A Time to Change and Other Poems
32 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1954
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July 16, 2024
One finds this tome an astonishing collection of poems for a youngman in his twenties. The title is appropriate -- the young poet had till now studied philosophy, but now he felt that poetry was his true vocation. He, consequently, felt an urge to change over to poetry, and the result was the assortment under discussion.
The poems in this anthology reflect practically all the themes and interests that have engaged the attention of the poet up to date.
**First, it shows that the poet considered poetry to be a way of life, a continuous flow, something which is an integral part of life. Hence his pronouncement that, "Poetry is elusive, to write a poem is comparatively easy".
All his collections of poems, and poems published separately, are related to one another, and form one organic whole.
An early poem throws light on a latter one because for him poetry is a constant flow like life itself. Thus in one of the poems in the collection he says:
A poem is an episode, completed
In an hour or two, but poetry
Is something more. It is the why
The how, the what, the flow
From which a poem comes.
In which the savage and the singular,
The gentle, familiar,
Are all dissolved; the residue
Is what you read, as a poem, the rest
Flows and is poetry.
Poetry for him has always remained a 'limpid style of life', despite his varied interests and pre-occupations.
**Secondly, even this early collection brings out his fine sense of structure, a logical evolution of theme step by step, a logical progression from start to finish. This is best seen in the title poem, ‘A Time to Change’. It is a long poem divided into five sections. It reveals the poet's frustration and his quest for identity and his faith that this identity is to be sought in life and not outside it. It can be achieved only through marital bliss and human relationships.
However, it also brings out his social concerns, his social ideal, and his genuine sympathy for the tormented and suffering humanity. The poet constantly moves between two poles--quest for personal identity and concern for the people. These were always to remain the central themes of Ezekiel's poetry.
From this point of view, "A Time to Change" is a very important poem.
Indeed, like the Metaphysical poets of England of the 17th century, like T.S. Eliot and others in the modern age, Ezekiel also believes that, "all art is based on the conflict and contrast of opposites", and the poet should try to show how these opposites can be reconciled.
This is clearly seen in poems like "An African Mask" in this collection. The collection also brings out his psychological interests, and his unusual gift of sketching the portraits of individual human beings.
From sketching the portrait of others, he repeatedly returns to his own self, as is seen in the following extract from, "On Meeting a Pedant":
Words, looks, gestures, everything betrays
The unquiet mind, the emptiness wit within.
Sunlight swarms around him and the summer
Evenings melt in rich fatness on his tongue
But he is rigid........
Give me touch of men and given me smell of
Fornication, pregnancy and spices,
But spare me words as cold as print, insidious
Words, dressed in evening clothes for drawng rooms.
This gift of portraiture is seen at his best in poems like 'A Visitor' included in his collection of poems entitled Sixty Poems. But it is also to be noticed in many of the poems of this anthology.
The lines quoted above also show his disgust for the futile conversation of polite society. He finds such genteel conversation dull and stupid, and feels bored in the company of such people.
This disgust is still more clearly seen in "The Double Horror" where he denounces mass civilisation and regrets the loss of minority culture. This urban theme finds an ironic treatment in the following lines:
Posters selling health and happiness in bottles,
Larger returns for small investments, in football pools
Or self-control, six easy lessons for a pound,
Holidays in Rome for writing praise of toothpastes.
Ezekiel was always worried by doubts about his own sexual capacity, and could never achieve satisfactory relations in extra-marital relations, and hence his longing for happy domestic life.
His lack of communication in extra-marital sex relation is clearly seen in the following lines and also in many other poems of this collection:
And then she said: I love you, just like this
As I had seen the yellow blondes declare
Upon the screen, and even strocked my hair,
But hates me now because I did not kiss.
Ezekiel's quest ever was for harmonising the religious and secular element and the theme runs through his poetry.
He rejected the indefinite and the uncommitted man, and advocated the integration of life and art and culture including poetry in his own life as well as in the life of society as a whole. This is seen in "Something to Pursue" and several other poems. He wanted to be committed, to belong, to be, "definite as morning", and thus moves towards self-fulfilment. "Something to Pursue" is an important poem as it seeks to combine the opposites of love and sex and poetry and prayer.
It also brings out the theme of meditation and prayer which runs through his poetry:
Empty of faith in the comeliness of God,
Empty of faith in the shapeliness of man,
Contemplation turned to pus, incapable
Of action........
Ezekiel's concern with urban life and its problems is also voiced in the lyric.
Another of the major themes of Ezekiel's poetry is also present in this early collection. Married life leads to quarrels and indifference, but the sanctity of the institution of marriage and home must be preserved at all costs. A break-down of married life can be prevented if husband and wife co-operate in some useful work:
Always we must be lovers,
Man and wife at work upon the hard
Mass of material which is the world.
Life is made up of compromises, and working together is a kind of conciliation for keeping married life going on.
Time to Change is an early volume and it is not free of its faults. There is much that is inconsequential and prosaic. However, it also reveals the great poet of the future.
Ezekiel's major themes are all present here, and there is remarkable structural skill, metrical ability and enormous variety, creditable for a person in his twenties.
The poems in this anthology reflect practically all the themes and interests that have engaged the attention of the poet up to date.
**First, it shows that the poet considered poetry to be a way of life, a continuous flow, something which is an integral part of life. Hence his pronouncement that, "Poetry is elusive, to write a poem is comparatively easy".
All his collections of poems, and poems published separately, are related to one another, and form one organic whole.
An early poem throws light on a latter one because for him poetry is a constant flow like life itself. Thus in one of the poems in the collection he says:
A poem is an episode, completed
In an hour or two, but poetry
Is something more. It is the why
The how, the what, the flow
From which a poem comes.
In which the savage and the singular,
The gentle, familiar,
Are all dissolved; the residue
Is what you read, as a poem, the rest
Flows and is poetry.
Poetry for him has always remained a 'limpid style of life', despite his varied interests and pre-occupations.
**Secondly, even this early collection brings out his fine sense of structure, a logical evolution of theme step by step, a logical progression from start to finish. This is best seen in the title poem, ‘A Time to Change’. It is a long poem divided into five sections. It reveals the poet's frustration and his quest for identity and his faith that this identity is to be sought in life and not outside it. It can be achieved only through marital bliss and human relationships.
However, it also brings out his social concerns, his social ideal, and his genuine sympathy for the tormented and suffering humanity. The poet constantly moves between two poles--quest for personal identity and concern for the people. These were always to remain the central themes of Ezekiel's poetry.
From this point of view, "A Time to Change" is a very important poem.
Indeed, like the Metaphysical poets of England of the 17th century, like T.S. Eliot and others in the modern age, Ezekiel also believes that, "all art is based on the conflict and contrast of opposites", and the poet should try to show how these opposites can be reconciled.
This is clearly seen in poems like "An African Mask" in this collection. The collection also brings out his psychological interests, and his unusual gift of sketching the portraits of individual human beings.
From sketching the portrait of others, he repeatedly returns to his own self, as is seen in the following extract from, "On Meeting a Pedant":
Words, looks, gestures, everything betrays
The unquiet mind, the emptiness wit within.
Sunlight swarms around him and the summer
Evenings melt in rich fatness on his tongue
But he is rigid........
Give me touch of men and given me smell of
Fornication, pregnancy and spices,
But spare me words as cold as print, insidious
Words, dressed in evening clothes for drawng rooms.
This gift of portraiture is seen at his best in poems like 'A Visitor' included in his collection of poems entitled Sixty Poems. But it is also to be noticed in many of the poems of this anthology.
The lines quoted above also show his disgust for the futile conversation of polite society. He finds such genteel conversation dull and stupid, and feels bored in the company of such people.
This disgust is still more clearly seen in "The Double Horror" where he denounces mass civilisation and regrets the loss of minority culture. This urban theme finds an ironic treatment in the following lines:
Posters selling health and happiness in bottles,
Larger returns for small investments, in football pools
Or self-control, six easy lessons for a pound,
Holidays in Rome for writing praise of toothpastes.
Ezekiel was always worried by doubts about his own sexual capacity, and could never achieve satisfactory relations in extra-marital relations, and hence his longing for happy domestic life.
His lack of communication in extra-marital sex relation is clearly seen in the following lines and also in many other poems of this collection:
And then she said: I love you, just like this
As I had seen the yellow blondes declare
Upon the screen, and even strocked my hair,
But hates me now because I did not kiss.
Ezekiel's quest ever was for harmonising the religious and secular element and the theme runs through his poetry.
He rejected the indefinite and the uncommitted man, and advocated the integration of life and art and culture including poetry in his own life as well as in the life of society as a whole. This is seen in "Something to Pursue" and several other poems. He wanted to be committed, to belong, to be, "definite as morning", and thus moves towards self-fulfilment. "Something to Pursue" is an important poem as it seeks to combine the opposites of love and sex and poetry and prayer.
It also brings out the theme of meditation and prayer which runs through his poetry:
Empty of faith in the comeliness of God,
Empty of faith in the shapeliness of man,
Contemplation turned to pus, incapable
Of action........
Ezekiel's concern with urban life and its problems is also voiced in the lyric.
Another of the major themes of Ezekiel's poetry is also present in this early collection. Married life leads to quarrels and indifference, but the sanctity of the institution of marriage and home must be preserved at all costs. A break-down of married life can be prevented if husband and wife co-operate in some useful work:
Always we must be lovers,
Man and wife at work upon the hard
Mass of material which is the world.
Life is made up of compromises, and working together is a kind of conciliation for keeping married life going on.
Time to Change is an early volume and it is not free of its faults. There is much that is inconsequential and prosaic. However, it also reveals the great poet of the future.
Ezekiel's major themes are all present here, and there is remarkable structural skill, metrical ability and enormous variety, creditable for a person in his twenties.
Displaying 1 of 1 review