Shaoni

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Impulses Laid Bare

by Alexia

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Shaoni said: " We are a montage of memories-- memories that we so artistically camouflage in order to fit in. Our ability to perceive things as they are and the living power to re-imagine to conform to the superficialities are diametrically opposites.

The poet promp We are a montage of memories-- memories that we so artistically camouflage in order to fit in. Our ability to perceive things as they are and the living power to re-imagine to conform to the superficialities are diametrically opposites.

The poet prompts us to step right out, to have a day for ourselves and walk along the pavement amidst the "half-woken faces"--- faces drooping in the unfathomable depths of inexpressible emotions. The other half is as obscure as our concealed selves are, but the esoteric knowledge of it is only understood by those who have gone through such failed attempts to "keep the surface pristine". And as a result, the "concealed cracks" seem to ooze into our reality and all we end up is a blurred perception of our real selves: the shadowlines of loneliness and isolation are now darker than ever before.

The circular nature of loneliness binds us in and claws onto our walls, and its jaws has carnivorous teeth. It has the ability to slowly churn us, compelling us to dive right "into the abyss".
"Looking so made up from outside,
Dying within"
This reminds me of Eliot's 'The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock' where we tend to "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" and this sense of postponement in terms of action is the simulatenous fear of "rejection to come true." What if they detest the way we measure our lives? The poet, for the time being, proposes that the circle of loneliness must not trap the readers as it did for the poetic persona. For even though, we sometimes want to let someone in, the fear runs deep in our veins: "Just can't let you in./ Fear to let you in" for the person intended might be someone who just "come and go/Talking of Michelangelo" and turn out to be one of those phantom listeners and mine would just be "the lonely Travellers' call" ('The Listeners'). Although, in the quiet of the moonlight, the voices are clear than ever before, the "plunging hoops were gone" and the poet, Alexia wishes to have "the key to this/Crack this circle" to have the lost sense of communication restored. In 'Is Struggle a Reason?', the lines "I fear the decay winter will bring...It's the hope of a sunny summer, keeping me alive." echoes Shelley's words: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

I'd strongly recommend you to read 'Impulses Laid Bare' because the literature contained in each of the poems gives a sense of that quietness-- which may seem "surreal to one's [my] chaotic heart". ...more "

May 11, 2023 11:24AM · see review