Aesthetics of Loneliness / Ashish Gorde

"...It is a very inspiring article on 'The Spectacles of American Isolation' written by Mark Feeney and was reprinted in the Gulf News' Weekend Review. It's not included in the Review's web edition, and I guess, it could be partly because it's a syndicated article from the New York Times News Service. The main focus of the article is an examination of Edward Hopper's paintings, and how he could be considered to be the Great American Artist. Fenney writes, 'the sources of his popular appeal are obvious enough: immediate accessibility; a subtle yet vivid colour sense; familiar, but not too familiar, subject matter; a fondness for picturesque settings such as New York, Maine and Cape Cod; even a whiff of prurience.' However, he goes on to describe what he feels to be a "Hopperesque" quality, and calls it loneliness. "

I missed reading this because of the recent flood of new posts on the board. But reading Ashish Gorde's essay, in relation to the original article by Mark Feeney at Boston Globe which triggered it, was interesting, because I've always thought the opposite about Hopper's creations, that it was about the healing power of solitude, rather than the pain of loneliness. I call it the elevator consciousness ( a post on this later) - it brings to me that moment when you surface for air from being submerged in a group of people, forced to breathe in their exhaled opinions, purposes and personalities. I'm an extrovert, no sociopath, but I feel no pathos in Hopper, only respite and relief. I feel the transience of the situation.The person reading in the train, or the lonely diner in the highway restaurant is alone, but only in passing. Tomorrow he will reach home and be inescapably among people again.

It could be entirely my take, maybe Hopper did intend for them to portray loneliness imposed, rather than solitude chanced upon, that I tend to read into it. Maybe I find solitude rarer than company, living in a crowded urban scene, and long for the spaces, so American as the article says, where one can breathe free. But I find his other attractive aspect, his matter-of-factness, revealing and supportive of my reading. He does not portray a permanent loneliness, he does not portray tragedy. The people are all placid in their aspect, inward looking, but not mourning. The loneliness seems more located in the space they are in, and the oddness of their position in it, rather than in the person himself, and the person seems acutely aware of his position, but chooses to accept it, because it is not permanent. In this acceptance, a loosening of norms of sociability, in this tendency to revel in the aloneness, rather than seek a superficial conversation with a stranger, a waiter in the restaurant or a fellow passenger, Hopper highlights a moment of self-sufficiency that I have admired all along.

Nursery of Words - Translation (Reshmi Warrier)

I like the Griffin's version below of Reshmi Warrier's translation Nursery of Words..
I have an idea the original must be really good, if even a casual translation sounds fine.
There are a couple of people including Vijay Nair, who do translations and transliterations from their original Malayalam. Their modest promotion of literature from their native tongues is note-worthy, I wish more people would do this.

Casually

Like you would look at your overgrown nails
Like a long forgotten tune remembered without reason
Like a dream you thought you dreamt before

And because there is nothing to restrain the loss of memory

We dig out buried meanings to see if they have sprouted roots.

Song of Job (Maliha Raza)

Maliha's Song of Job is here...

We stride along the shadowed paths
The dappled fall of sun and star
Down the haunted darkling gorge
Up the sunlit cliff and scar

All the demons rise and walk
All the corpses come alive
We meet again in fire and heat
My mourned, my buried pain and I

David Israel's critique of the same is very good. It is rare that someone can get technical and yet be readable, and more than that, make it interesting.

The Tiger's Den (Poem) - Ozymandias

Amidst the jungle’s myriad cries
Beyond the brightness of the skies,
Marked with bones and drying gore
And a fearful dreadful roar
I am the mighty tiger’s den!

Now when men have come to stay
And sow and reap and cry and play,
The roars still echo in the night
And the weak avoid my sight:
I am the awful tiger’s den!

continue...

Do read this one fully.
Usually explanations are unnecessary for what inspired the poem. But in this case, understanding Ozymandias's Waghbil connection was useful.
Aparna

Blurring - Poem (Seekstill)

Blurring around the edges
torn against the night shade
midnight is bluing
into the winter ice moon,
I move between the spaces of my fluidity

continued..

That was well done. Death leads,we follow. Where else can we go?
Aparna

The nights are tough (Rahul Pandita)

Eleven years have passed in this city. Next to where you are breaking your promise of serving breakfast only to me, I remember buying a book from my first salary: Safdar Hashmi - The fifth flame. Life had just begun to explore new theatres of existence. I was raw; I did not know how to cut a slice of pizza. I would lose my way almost every day, thinking South Extension was nearer to Saket than IIT Gate. There were no counters of boiled corn those days; people would eat peanuts while waiting for the bus, warming their hands on a small bonfire lit by a friendly watchman. Very few people had cars those days. The roads were emptier. There were no malls, no Cafe Coffee Days. The lawns of the National School of Drama offered solace to lovers. Holding hands in the darkness of a cinemahall would rid the heart of triglycerides. Mosquitoes would still die from Tortoise coils.

continued..

I liked it immensely. Holding on to memories, painful as they may be and reliving them through a pilgrimage of old haunts.

I found two corrections.
'pilgrimages' has an extra 'm'
Coconut oil on (not in) his head

Aparna

Love letter from Komalavalli - Story in Verse (seekersought)

I used to wear my hair long
and had a permanent beard
then when my lips bore Beatles song
I liked to be seen and heard

My youth drunk in recklessness
nothing felt impossible
I swaggered in casual carelessness
to be unloved seemed improbable

We huddled by parking spaces
talking music, naxalism, poetry
we wore such enigmatic faces
in love with ourselves dearly

continue...

Seekersought, you are a lady of 'many whorls'!
I'd like to use up all the superlatives right now - this was outrageous, fantastic, pure brilliance. This has to be one of the best posts I can remember on this forum (no offense to others, blame my 'benign forgottance'- yes, I'll be using that phrase very often in the next couple weeks :-) )

To borrow your words a bit, (and return them to you a little  dirtied),

I'm
"unwilling to refute
that which roused my blasted mind
was not caffeine, but your Caferati post"

Aparna