Poets and their Creations

Sanyat Sattar

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of expressions. Wordsworth referred to it as thoughts reflected in tranquility. As such, poetry, usually, is a form that teems with personal references. Yet it is also has a social relevance as it often addresses the social, and the political from a personal point of view. Through intimation of private thought poets often reflect on philosophies of life and provide glimpses of the society as well. In other words, poetry can be a window to life itself that the poets provide from their point of view.

Bhalobashar Jibonananda
Mohammed Rafiq
Dhendhon Pa, Dhaka
February 2003

Eminent poet Mohammed Rafiq this time studies the works of a fellow poet Jibonananda Das. But this volume can in no way be termed as a high-minded criticism on Jibonananda's poetry. On the contrary, it is a sort of “tribute” to the poet.
Mingling prose and verse together, Mohammed Rafiq intends to explore how Jibonananda Das has managed to obtain an unparalleled place in the world of Bangla poetry. Rafiq, through his unique description makes a parallel study and takes us to ancient Athens and Rome, to Latin America, to twentieth century America and where not! This volume prepares the readers to discover Jibonananda Das from a whole new perspective and it certainly hints at the influence that this great poet has on the writer himself.

Words Alone: The Poet T. S. Eliot
Denis Donoghue
Yale University Press;
November 2000

A distinguished reader of modern literature, Donoghue here offers his most personal book of literary criticism, presenting an illuminating account of his engagement with the works of T.S. Eliot.
Donoghue has found a new way of combining autobiography and criticism, and the justification for the experiment is the maturity -- the wisdom -- of his commentary on Eliot's poetry. Seekers of insights into the ever-hot topic of Eliot's anti-Semitism may be disappointed by Donoghue's approach, which is, to list at length of varying views from different critics, as if to paralyse the reader and defuse this potentially inflammatory subject.

Running to Paradise
M. L. Rosenthal
Oxford University Press;
April 1997 (Reprint edition)

Rosenthal offers a close, sensitive reading of Yeats's major poems and plays. Proceeding chronologically through the entire oeuvre, Rosenthal explores the relations between poems and between volumes, identifying poetic sequences and tracing the path of Yeats's career.
Here the writer sheds new, vivid light on Yeats's daring use of tradition, his love of poetry, and the way he faced the often tragic realities of revolution and civil war. The book describes Yeats's whole effort--sometimes livened up by wild humour--to convey, with high poetic integrity, his passionate sense of his own life and of his chaotic era. Specialists will be impressed by the insight and responsiveness of the readings, while the abundant quotations from the poems and plays make this study especially valuable for those less familiar with the poet.