Literature Paper

Analysis of Nissam Ezekiel Indian Poem

I believe among all the modernists, it is Ezekiel who shows a most clearly defined spiritual quest in his poetry.  Ezekiel himself acknowledged this in his interview with Inder Nath Kher:

I am not a religious or even a moral persona in any conventional sense.  Yet, I’ve always felt myself to be religious and moral in some sense.  The gap between these two statements is the essential sphere of my poetry.  (5)

From A Time to Change and Other Poems, his very first, to Latter-Day Psalms, his last collection, this preoccupation persists. Always, he is a “man aspiring/To the Good, which may be God” (16) and the way is “Prayer and poetry, poetry and prayer” (ibid).3  In “Something to Pursue,” Ezekiel sets forth his agenda in unambiguous terms:

      There is a way

      Emerging from the heart of things;

      A man may follow it

      Through works to poetry,

      From works to poetry

      Or from poetry to something else.

      The end does not matter,

      The way is everything,

      And guidance comes.   

                              (14)

What distinguishes Ezekiel’s spiritual quest from that of other poets like Sri Aurobindo is that it is apparently so modest.  I shall talk about this later, but apart from this modest, Ezekiel’s quest is ultimately about perception.  To him, poetry is a mode not just of expression, but of perception.  The spiritual, for Ezekiel, is thus equated with the right way of viewing reality.  Those who can see correctly are the ones who are free of suffering.  It is they who can apprehend what reality really is like.  The rest are deluded by their senses and intellect. They continue to toil blindly and condemn themselves to delusion.  This, to me, is the essence of Ezekiel’s spiritual genius. 

      This obsession with seeing things as they are is connected with trying to understand what is—that reality, both inner and outer, which presents itself to our perception every given moment...