- Forty-nine poems
Very similarly, driven to accomplish, and inspired by his childhood experiences, as well as what it was like growing up in a certain environment, Sandesh Bartlett was driven to put together 49 poems in a collection titled “Of God of Man and Mortal Things”. This week, Brunch spoke to Bartlett to understand his journey of 49 poems and how he was inspired to put together a collection that was recently nominated for the State Literature Award.
How did you start putting together this collection of poems?
I always had the desire to create written work. What the initial spark was I cannot tell for certain, but my earliest recollections are a book about elephants that I wrote with colour pencils on sheets of stapled paper when I was five-years-old, using material completely plagiarised from the National Geographic channel. I had a strong desire to write something as sweeping and complex as the “Lord of the Rings”, the beaten, dusty family copy which I’d seen my cousins pore over at every Christmas party. That something so complex and awe inspiring could be fabricated in someone’s imagination probably made a lasting impression on me, because by the time I was in kindergarten I knew I wanted to be a writer. A lot of my early work was mere imitation and emulation. In terms of poetry, some of my earliest poems were cheap reflections of the powerful hymns included in my school’s Anglican hymnal. However, it is common for children to recreate that which they find interesting, and by learning to work with the same lexis, metre and structure of the hymns at school, I developed an enduring taste for language and melody. The hymnal instilled in me a strong sense for metre, rhyme, and diction. Eventually, I graduated from imitating chapel hymns and applied what I’d learned to poetry involving other themes such as war, love, and politics. Poetry became a medium through which I commented on the state of affairs in the country, shared my own developing world view (I was a rather opinionated teenager at this point), and occasionally reflected on personal matters.
War was my strongest theme at first. I lived next to the Ratmalana airport at the height of the war and had relatives from both ethnicities that had suffered immeasurably. The pointlessness of the conflict was something I dwelt on quite often, despite all the Sri Lankan political trumpeting that seemed to endorse violence.
Are these influences seen in your collection of poetry?
Yes. If you read “Crimson” for example, the poem is centred on a corpse in a battlefield and its opening line is meant to hint at the Christmas carol “What Child is This?” and thereby, draw parallels to someone’s son rotting on a battlefield and that of the Christ child, both of whom are associated with ideas of sacrifice. Yet to the reader’s eye, one is starkly a sacrifice in vain. Macabre as it sounds, war was certainly a predominant theme due to its ubiquitous nature throughout my childhood. Religion, humour, love, politics, and social commentary soon followed.
Eventually, publishing the book was only the natural conclusion to having written so much over the years. It was more of an exercise to ensure my best work was easily found in one place. I did have to include a few more pieces regarding Covid-19 to make the book more relevant, but a majority of the poems in the book were works I’d written in school and university. I had to exclude a handful of the more controversial works regarding my colourful thoughts on Sri Lanka’s political climate while also “killing my darlings” (as the old writing adage goes), to essentially come up with 49 good poems.
In addition to this, the Anglican hymnal during my years at the school chapel choir was pivotal in developing my taste for language and the melody that could be communicated via poetic metre. I should also add that my mother was both a Greek and Roman and English literature teacher. As such, my early years involved a lot of reading. Like Achilles was held over the Styx, I too was consistently exposed to both Greek and Roman and English literature in passing as a child. This and my exposure to occasional Latin through the chapel choir further developed my ability to work with language, which was helpful when writing in English. While I can speak neither German or Latin, understanding their roots in English vis-à-vis the etymology of words in common currency proves useful when writing: Germanic root words tend to be useful when communicating strong and passionate ideas, while the Latin/French roots tend to better communicate complex ideas.
Did you have a specific muse that helped you create this poetry, or rather, how were you driven?
No, in fact I do not think that there has ever been a single source of inspiration. However, I was predominantly driven by the sense of accomplishment I would feel whenever I wrote something I was proud of, even though it may have been fleeting.
Are there any poets whose work inspires you, or you look up to?
Wilfred Owen’s work taught me that war was one of the best poetry genres. War poetry, for the most part, and definitely Owen’s work, and is raw and genuine. He does not attempt to glorify war and nationalism which happens most times in poetry, but rather, communicate war in all its visceral, spiteful detail. Sri Lankan youth have unique experiences to write about, and having grown up during the Sri Lankan armed conflict, I eventually began to write about war and its corresponding themes of nationalist rhetoric, suicide bombings, and racism.
Another masterpiece that captivated me was an “Ode to a Nightingale”. Keats (the author) was influential in my early years for his uncanny ability to convey unpremeditated emotion with such vivid detail. I was also inspired by William Blake’s work, which is brilliant and stands out specifically because of his ability to deal with robust themes. Interestingly, several of these are juxtaposed in his “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”. I also enjoy the work of Dickinson, Poe, and Frost. Dickinson’s “Tell All the Truth But Tell it Slant” is one of the most intelligently written poems I’ve read so far.
How has the response been towards the book since it was published?
I would say that it has been good. In fact, I was nominated for the State Literature Award just two days ago. It was a pleasure writing it and I am glad that readers are enjoying it as well.
“Of God of Man and Mortal Things” is available at the Barefoot Bookshop, Makeen, Expographics, the Jam Fruit Tree, and Odel.