Deceptively simple, yet great poetic sensitivity

Christopher Caudwell, in his Illusion and Reality, a Marxist dissertation on literature, says that while the qualities of great novels can survive translation, those of poetry cannot. The reason is not far to seek. Poetry is basically a style of thinking of the creative artist, for whom the manner of conveying what he wants to say is intimately connected with the genius of the language in which he writes. The genius of the language is largely determined by the historical, social, and cultural factors that go to shape it.

Any up and coming, conscientious modern Tamil poet has to contend with the initial embarrassment of being bamboozled by a long, rich literary antiquity. He not only needs to be suitably equipped for being a worthy follower of such a long tradition but must also be talented enough to violate or modify the rules of prosody without offending the soul-rhythm and nuances of the language.

Sirpi Balasubramaniam, one of the major voices in contemporary Tamil poetry, is well-steeped in the Tamil literary tradition, as an academic scholar, who has professed this language for nearly four decades. His poems are deceptively simple and deal with a variety of themes with great poetic sensitivity.

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