SECTION THREE: DESIGN AND SCOPE
As the wealth of Ten Thousand Flower-Flames lies before us in all its massed power, one of the primary critical questions that we are compelled to ask is whether the poems constitute a unity or whether they are simply an aggregate of equipollent parts. In the previous section, I have asserted that the poems have a strong internal coherence based on a stability of intuitive vision. However, this coherence does not extend to a symmetrical arrangement of the poems. The disposition of the poems is largely determined by their chronological order of appearance.
The poems have been published in 100 volumes, each containing 100 poems. The first 500 poems, written during the eleven days that the poet was in India and Japan in 1979, are accompanied by precise dates. Thus we learn, for example, that on October 27th en route from Osaka to Calcutta the poet composed 155 poems. After Volume 5, the order of publication of the poems is not wholly accurate as a guide to chronology. Sometimes the poet would retain certain poems for final consideration or for a special purpose. Volume number 50, for example, is comprised mainly of the poet’s own favourite selections.
From January 1983, the month of publication has been printed in each book and this has helped considerably in establishing a broad chronological outline. It may be possible to construct a more detailed time chart by examining Sri Chinmoy’s notebooks but, in truth, there is such a short time lapse between compositions that the value of a chronological key is almost entirely obviated. If the poet should fill his notebook with poems in the course of a morning, it is of little use to say that such a one precedes another. We are dealing with a poet whose apprehensions are not consecutive but simultaneous. The countless subtle influences and changes to which the soul is subject are immediately present to him but he is obliged by the sequential nature of words themselves to communicate them individually.
Again, in order to achieve some more closely binding unity, the poet might have chosen to sift through the elements of his vision and arrange them by theme – beginning, say, with the soul’s night of tears and tracing its journey through to the heights of realisation. But that kind of procedure would introduce the conceptual approach of the intellectual mind. This in turn would result in a shift away from the spontaneity of the poet’s intuitive vision. “It is not enough” writes Ernest Fenellosa, “for [poetry] to furnish a meaning to philosophers. It must appeal to the emotions with the charm of direct impression, flashing through regions where the intellect can only grope.” Sri Chinmoy’s solution is to bring forth a vast constellation of poems in which numerous themes and forms commingle freely. We are continually uncovering fresh viewpoints and at the same time each new poem on a particular theme implicitly refers back to those that have preceded it. Consider a group of poems on the mind in Volume 66. Early in the volume we are given an unremitting picture of the power of impure thoughts to destroy the mind’s possibilities:
EACH UNCOMELY THOUGHT
Each uncomely thought
Eventually throws the mind
Into a chasm of bleeding despair.
(6514)
The force and originality of the final image is a direct result of the poet’s passionate repudiation of “uncomely” thoughts. Its effect is heightened by a fine interplay of literal and figurative words:
Ultimately the concrete/figurative connotations of “throw”, “chasm” and “bleeding” overthrow the abstract nouns of the poem to create a vivid and realistic picture. The focus of composition here, the three-lined stanza, is a favourite of the poet’s and is frequently used to project a strong sense of closure. This poem is made doubly powerful by its compaction and by the strength of its definitive statement. It precludes all qualifications and amendments.
It is interesting, however, to note that within the same volume of poems we encounter the following
TODAY’S PURE THOUGHTS
Today’s pure thoughts
Are resources
For tomorrow’s inner emergencies.
(6537)