…AND THE SILENCE WHISPERED -Book Review

…AND THE SILENCE WHISPERED 
poetic musings
Wani Nazir 
Global Fraternity of Poets
Gurugram - 122 002 (Haryana)
www.globalfraternityofpoets.com
ISBN : 978-93-83755-36-3
Pp: 148
Price : Rs. 340/-
Wani Nazir is a lecturer in English, in Srinagar . He is a Gold Medalist in M.A.English and for quite some time now a known name in today’s poetry in English , who keeps posting his poems on Facebook , a launching pad these days for aspiring authors, writers and poets.I became familiar with him through Facebook only and am amazed at some of the wonderful aspects and featutres of his poetry. . This is his first poetry collection and holds out more promise from him in his future pursuits also. 
There is a Foreword by Dr. Santosh Bakaya, an educationist and an acclaimed English language author / poet in her own right , an Introduction by Lopa Bannerjee, an author, poet and a translator of note herself , and an Acknowledgemet by the poet himself. The blurbs speak highly of his merits as a poet . The collection is dedicated to his two kids, whom he calls Haikus. I sincerely pray that his wish of seeing them grow into Epics is fulfilled !

“ …And the Silence Whispered” is a collection or more appropriately a bouquet of 103 flowers of different hues and description that makes a wonderful ensemble . The oxymoronic title of the collection is quite suggestive . It points out to the internal conflict and turmoil of seething emotions , not ready for a forced eruption. Expressed in more or less a gentle manner are his disillusion, self doubt, self discovery.He speaks of death, rebirth, despondency and sometimes of hope and promise. His sensitive heart bleeds at the violence, misery and strife and prevailing in today’s world, no less in the Valley he belongs to and lives in. His poetry seems an extension to what he calls Yeats’s lament and his hope for ‘the second coming’ and also Matthew Arnold’s longing for a new order devoid of all chaos and confusion. I also find in his poems, traces of Walt Whitman, albeit without celebration of ‘body electric’ as his poetry is about the Soul’s journey towards redemption through introspection . His poetry is also about piecing together of his fragmented existence and being reborn as a poet. Being a product of the times and the milieu, like all creative minds,he draws upon what he sees around and colours it with his observation. , stray incidents of all kinds move him no end. He vacillates between hope and despair depending on the mood. 
Here is a sample of the variegated shades of his poetry:

The poet’s heart bleeds at the plight of a young woman who is subjected to widowhood and his anguish gushes forth like this:

No more is she full of life.
She has lost her dear hubby
In some fake orchestrated encounter
Leaving behind his wife and a kid;
Ferried to some unknown realm
From whose bourn none returns! (LAMENT )

The poet is disappointed that much as he wants to be optimistic like Robert Browning and write about joy, hope and happiness, his muse as if rising in rebellion, turns him in the other direction and he can write only of pain , grief,and suffering

"God is in His heaven
And all's right with the world"
This I wished but didn't come true
My waiting did not bear any fruit,
The Muse came but whispered in
The verses painful and elegiac,
I held my pen in my hand,
And wrote a chain of doleful tales
That you read with weeping heart,
And my soul joins in too
To groan and moan with you! 
(MY MUSE )

Again there is a poignant irony when the poet imagines village urchins surrounding a toy seller, and a woman , who is a widow has to hold out false promise to her little child that his father on coming back home would bring toys for him. The visit of the toy seller is thus most unwelcome to her. 
Would that the toy seller knew!
Although he has brought smiles
On the umpteen pretty lips,
He made a poor child wail
And a widow to tell a lie,
To coax her child to fall asleep!
(A Widow and Her Coaxing Tale)

Sometimes, the poet is self assured of immortality as he shall continue to live through his children .

Don't I still have leftovers of all of them
Always there in my codified memory?
I have no premonitions of the end
My mortal frame will ever meet;
Because I will always be I
Enlivened in my progeny
( Never Shall I Die! )

Musing about the clock and the calendar hanging on the wall, he bemoans that they limit his existence in a time frame and he rather indulges himself with the fallacy that but for these two things ( contraptions ) he would be timeless. 
I surmise and muse upon
what my life would have been,
Sans these two methodical things!
Would it not be like eternity,
in my space bound cozy room,
Had there not been these two,
Time bound things hung over the wall 
(The Time-Bound )
Drawing an analogy between Carom Board and the discs, the poet seems to carry forward Shakespeare’s philosophy of destiny albeit with some qualifications .
Those small circular
Black and white discs
"As flies to the wanton boys
Are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport."
( Carom: Fait Accompli)

Some specimens of his poetry are self explanatory and do not need further enunciation like :

A wish…
Pops up in my heart;
Would that I could do away with
Weaving poems!
Because…
The ink of my quill fills my canvas
With only ugly thoughts;
Miseries, penury, unrequited love,
And the ilk. (The BLOODIED QUILL)

Again , and yet again, I am in a quandary,
As I don't die despite my desire,
Nor does the wish I harbour
Consistently deep inside my bosom.
( Between the Devil and Deep Sea)

Puzzled I stand with my fingers crossed,
In the midst of chaos and confusion;
Vacillating between light and darkness,
Torn between fact and falsehood;
( Dilemma )

O' my Muse! I think, and think it true
The unseen threads that tie you and me
Are somewhere bewielded all
By some power so supreme
That rains thoughts pure
On the undying treasure trove!
(To My Muse )

What can a blood-drenched pen write
Save pain, pangs, and elegies for the oppressed?
How can he eulogize the spring
When it too gushes out blood?
But! A poet can hold a mirror to all,
To show the concealed real interior
And make us see our beastly being
Under the thick human fleshly skin;
( Poet: The Redeemer )

Many more lines and stanzas stand out from other poems also, that hold the reader captivated and transfixed. 
An excellent wordsmith that the poet is, the images and metaphors are all superbly interwoven.The allusions are just amazing. 
The outpourings of a sensitive heart !
One would like to visit the poems again and again. 
A prize collection to have !