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Bhatti celebrates being one up on Shakespeare by not only writing more sonnets than the Bard of Avon but also being the poet with the largest number of published sonnets in English to his credit. But that is about all. Bhatti wrote his stuff while convalescing after an accident, whereas Shakespeare composed his sonnets in London in the 1590s during an outbreak of plague that closed theaters and prevented playwrights from staging dramas. Shakespeare exhibited his greatness in this genre with plays such as Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and The Tempest; his sonnets receive high praise for their cadence, elegant diction and superb imagery. Bhatti has a lot of catching up to do in these aspects.
Poetry is certainly not a jumble of didacticism, pseudo-philosophy and mawkish kitsch. It is the pinnacle of aesthetic depiction of life in all its hues. A good poem must be well written with a concise and accurate use of language so that it conveys ideas in the minimum possible words. Moreover, it should enable the reader to rise above the commonplace and become witness to a reality that is both exalted and instructive. Its imagery should be powerfully eloquent and convincing. It should beam a ray of hope amidst hopelessness, show the path to those gone astray and, should be pure and honest in its intent. This slim volume has some good poems like Trickles of Life and A Thoughtless Mind. But, as they say, there is always room for improvement.
Ever since he was an
11-year old, this novel’s protagonist, Samarth aka Sam, has been
inexorably attracted towards girls. As he grows up, he shows
unmistakable propensity for philandering. Now, this theme could have
been converted into a reasonably readable narrative. But the author
fails miserably. All sorts of clich`E9s and stereotypes have been bunged
in along with mounds of sexist and puerile trash. Today’s young adults
are neither all that dumb nor have they plummeted into decadence. It
would be hard for them to swallow the badly crafted dialogues, poor
syntax and cavalier treatment of the basics of good writing. As G. K.
Chesterton remarks in Heretics, "A good novel tells us the
truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its
author."
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A
sonnet is a lyrical poem of 14 lines with a formal rhyme scheme,
expressing different aspects of a single thought, mood, or feeling, that
crystallise in the last two lines. The two main forms of the sonnet are
the Petrarchan, or Italian, and the Shakespearean or English. The
earliest known Italian sonneteer was Guittone d'Arezzo. The form reached
its peak with Italian poet Petrarch, whose Canzoniere (c. 1327)
includes 317 sonnets addressed to his beloved Laura. Among Petrarch's
followers, who helped to establish the sonnet tradition in their own
countries, were his countryman Torquato Tasso, Luis de Camoes in
Portugal, and Frenchmen Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. Sir
Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, are credited with
introducing the sonnet into England. Typically, a Petrarch sonnet
consists of an eight-line stanza (octave) and a six-line stanza
(sestet). The first stanza presents a theme, and the second stanza
develops it. The English sonnet is divided into three quatrains, each
rhymed differently, with a final, independently rhymed couplet that
makes an effective, unifying climax to the whole.
Trickles
of Life
Mom
Says no Girlfriend