Shaleen Kumar Singh’s Review Of Winged Reason

Shaleen Kumar “Singh’s Review

 

D. C. Chambial is right when he asserts, “K. V. Dominic, like Prof. Shiv K. Kumar, is also a late bloomer in the world of Indian English Poetry”. Dr. Chambial hopes so much from this first collection Winged Reason that he says, “There is no doubt that his contribution to Indian English Poetry will definitely enrich and leave it more mature and richer for posterity.” (Blurb) There is no doubt that K. V. Dominic is a ‘late bloomer’ but it is also true that Dr. Dominic has tried to fill this void by his editing of books on Indian English Literature and his academic journal Indian Journal of Post-Colonial Literature. In the past few months, Dominic has edited many books and journals, which I came to learn from many of his Call for Papers, poetry and short stories. Sometimes I wonder how Dr. Dominic spares and manages time from teaching, which is itself a hard job for a sincere teacher.

The book Winged Reason dedicated to poet’s loving father Late Vargesh Kannapilly, is a ‘maiden book of free verse consisting of 39 poems’ which are the ‘fruit of his five years of poetic voyage.’ In his preface, Dominic makes clear about ‘rights and wrongs’ of his poetry in the light of many poets and critics, though at few places the poet grows more personal than objective. He says very candidly, “I do believe that I matured very late, at the age of 45, to be able to choose and impart them to my students as well as readers of my poems.” (Preface) The poet speaks sufficiently enough about his poems and tells aright that his poems deal chiefly with the themes of ‘disparities in society, problems of poor, the down- trodden, the corruption,  exploitation by political parties and religions are the main areas where the poet has written chiefly and being a Keralite, his poems naturally deal with nature. Besides, first two poems ‘In Memoriam: George Joson’ and ‘E. K. Nayanar’ hint that the poet is very sensitive to his colleague and social leaders. The poet thinks about society and his fellow citizens very seriously and so he writes poems like ‘Indian Democracy,’ ‘Vrinda,’ ‘Lal Salam to Labour,’ ‘International Women’s Day,’ ‘Have and Have-nots’ and ‘In the Name of God.’ In few poems like ‘Onam’ one can witness the local hues while in poems like ‘Nature’s Bounties,’ poet’s love for nature is also discernible. But the poet has been chiefly social visionary in his poems of the collection as his large number of poems deal with Socio-cultural themes.

From the perusal of the anthology, we can say without doubt that Dominic is a poet with strong social vision and emotion for the common mass. He should write more and more poetry and let his fellow poets know what real poetry is and what a real poetry should be. I wish the poet all the best and expect more from his facile pen.

 

–Dr. Shaleen Kumar Singh (English Critic, Poet, Short Story Writer, Reviewer, Editor), Uttar Pradesh, India.