by
Guest Writer: Shankaran Nambiar
Latif Kamaluddin's Lazy Lamas and Voodoo Genitalia is an exciting and provocative collection of poems that attempts to tease and disturb the reader. With this volume, Kamaluddin effortlessly establishes himself as the most outstanding poet in Malaysia who attempts to explore the limits of language and the mystical edges of religion.
His "Cosmic Interview" raises the question of "why when and how/ did the individual/ self experience separation/ from the Universal Self". Only to be answered with a terse, "... if I know". This is followed by some blank space, framed by the line "END OF INTERVIEW." This poem is at once an exploration in religion in its most mystical sense, as well as a play of space and silence. Kamaluddin could have noted that the interview had ended immediately after the answer to the question was delivered, rather he chose to permit space to pervade between the answer and his declaration that the interview had ended. This serves only to highlight the silence that follows something for which no ready answer can be given. In this sense, Kamaluddin equates space (with no words) with silence.
This play of space as silence finds expression in an untitled poem of his where on one side of the page one finds the lines "god/must/be /liberated" juxtaposed against the lines "man/must/be/ re-created". Both of these lines, arranged as columns, are separated by a wide gap, or a breadth of space, that denotes the divide between man and God. Reading this poem, it is clear that Kamaluddin does more than seek to stress the unbridgeable gap between man and God. He also points out that God is a linguistic contraption of which we must be freed, and in so doing we take upon ourselves the task of liberating God from our preconceptions of Him, however we may conceive of Him. This process of "liberating god" or our linguistic understanding of God, Kamaluddin declares, results in man being re-created. But that, indeed, is a long process that in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions could take lifetimes of effort. It is an effort that needs great patience; and if we do not have the patience to wait without any demand, it could be akin to the feeling of constipation. And that explains why Kamaluddin rather irreverently announces at the close: "LET US ALL THEN GET CONSTIPATED."
We have come to be accustomed to waiting for actions that are result-oriented. Waiting in the spiritual sense is quite the opposite; it is a waiting that calls for the attitude "Thy will be done". Such waiting consequently implies waiting outside the boundaries of time. Kamaluddin’s concern with waiting of that nature comes to the fore again in his "Memogramme". He notes that "You are/dead now/and/I/ am unavailable/" and then goes on to ask, "so/where does/that leave/longing?" The context that he poses here is one where Nietzsche's God is dead and the seeker is unavailable. In a situation such as this what does longing mean, if one can at all long for the Divine under such circumstances? The irony that Kamaluddin hints at is mischievous when one notes that the title of this poem suggests the common memo that is circulated in offices, which requires results of a tangible form, not some longing that needs divine fervour. Again, a memo cannot function in the presence of the death of a person and the absence of another, a distinction that is absolutely at odds with a religious life.
Kamaluddin's untitled 'box' poem appears, at first sight, like word play. It seems to be the careful arrangement of words that takes the form of a square. The line on top reads, "every body has" and it turns down in clockwise direction to go on to "a box no one", leading on to "goes there", finally ending with "no one knows". If read in the natural sequence of a square, it would read: "every body has/a box no one/ goes there/ no one knows." One could, and is tempted to, read differently. Perhaps Kamaluddin is suggesting that everyone has a 'box', to which no one goes, and of which no one knows. If the reader were to take the trouble to develop the right metaphors, this poem can elicit tremendous insights; and in this sense he wants us to take a more intellectual posture towards his poems. Whatever it is that one takes a 'box' to suggest, at its core it is empty. And one cannot but fail to note that the "void" is a theme that recurs in his poetry in different ways, as the absence of person, as the death of God, as a concept that begs to be stripped of its linguistic trappings.
As can only be fitting for a collection of poems that is religious in a rebellious fashion and which invites linguistic de- and re-construction, Kamaluddin's last poem, entitled "Finalaudit", has just three lines, "going/ going/ gone". And these three words, which are so reminiscent of the Buddhist exhort to go beyond the temporal world, seem to be hiss reminder that urges us to go beyond the apparent as suggested by language and grammar.
In this volume Kamaluddin, perhaps, expresses concerns that should be central to one's life: to explore the foundation of time and space, to delve into solidity and embrace the void, to explore the interplay of word and silence; and more than anything else, to seek liberation from the strictures of language, grammar, form and sound. Kamaluddin in his slim and shocking volume, extends a formidable invitation to the reader.
(Silverfish Books will be giving away free copies of this book to anyone who comes to the bookshop and is interested -- please ask for one. Since we have only limited copies, it will have to be on a, strictly, first come first served basis. We will not take reservations or bookings.)
No comments:
Post a Comment