A life versified

Jeewan Ramlugun

Bardic inclinations can have unchartered points of departure and undetermined directions. All that matters, is finding the right words, and placing them in the right order, adding rhythms, rhymes and felicitous verse forms to externalise inner feelings and passions, evoked by special moments, states and experiences.

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And so it is that I have found poetry to be the most exhilarating, exalting and liberating medium of expression of both the ineffable and the mystical, and the more mundane, matter-of-fact phenomena, as well as abstract, philosophical ideas.

In my early years, I had felt the pull of nature in an enduring and powerful way, even before I had acquired the linguistic and literary wherewithal, to effectively articulate the profound emotions evoked, in particular, by natural beauty.

I grew up on a large plot of land, filled with fruit trees, cane fields, and with a long sinuous river flowing at the bottom of a steep ravine, all encircled by majestic mountains. At age of nine my family uprooted from this village idyll and settled in a suburb of Curepipe. After an unsettling initial period, I reconnected with nature, and the impulse to poetise grew. And, my strong liking for the English language and nature poetry, especially Wordsworth’s, Shelley’s and others, riveted my interest in English verse.

Fast forward, the influences upon my poetry were reinforced by my long association with the Lakeland situated in the north of England, and closer, with the Royal Bushy Park, adjacent to Hampton Court Palace, in the vicinity of which I have resided for very many years. A book titled, ‘Bushy Park: A Collection of Poems’, will feature in a docufilm, in the making. Bushy Park has inspired me to compose an endless number of poems, enabling me , through concentrated filters , to catch and distil glimpses of my experiences, and sensations in smells, sounds and sight.

Four more volumes are awaiting publication, including a collection on environmental concerns, destined to be part of a film project.

Though I am predominantly drawn to nature poetry, I have been more wide-ranging in my choices of themes and subject matters. I have written several prose pieces for academic purposes, yet poetry remains, my preferred way of perceiving, observing, ruminating over things, and expressing myself.

I have read some of my poems at different poetry events in the UK. Two years ago, 3 theatre actors did a recital of a selection of my poems in public.

      HERE AGAIN

The golden thread of this life, if frayed

and unraveled,

winds down to its point of origin,

to be again set in motion

re-sensing the primal pulse,

re-experiencing the vital impulse

animating the spirit

and quickening the heart.

 

The velvety verdure

of this evergreen island, for long far,

is now enchantingly near,

with its sub-tropical foliages,

from infructuous, yet lush trees

to resplendent anthuriums.

 

I hear the stirring outpourings

of sparrows, mynas and some others;

I catch the rhythm

from another time,

a few cherished beats missing.

 

I am here again to relive

bygone days and to be fully alive.

 

Jeewan Ramlugun

29 March 2019

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