Gopi K Kottoor: The Poetry of Emotion, Colour and Passion
Literary Interview by Capt. Dr. Arvind Nawale
“I feel that the process of poetry is like blood running in
the body. The blood does its function.
Poetry, for which you are ordained, is doing its job all the while for
you whether you are aware of it or not. I let it. The poetry runs within, taking resources from
all around and stirs it with emotions of all kinds. The poet is only the
outlet, the medium. When the trigger comes, poetry bleeds.” -Gopi K Kottoor
*The Present interview is published in my book Global
Responses to Literature in English, ISBN 978-81-7273-652-1, AuthorsPress, New
Delhi
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GOPIKRISHNAN KOTTOOR
Gopikrishnan Kottoor is a major contemporary voice, and foremost
among Indian poets presently
writing in English . He is an award-winning poet, with
the highest number of prizes and short lists featured in the All India Poetry
Competitions of The Poetry Society (India)- British Council . His prizes
include, The Special All India Poetry Prize-97, The Second All India Poetry
Prize (General Category-97) both in the same year, and Commendation prizes
(95,98). His poems have appeared in Orbis (UK), Ariel (University of Calgary),
Toronto Review (Canada), Nth Position Online (UK), Arabesques (Africa), Plaza
(Japan), The Illustrated Weekly Of India, Chandrabhaga, Indian Literature,
Kavya Bharati, Lipi, Opinion, Kavi (India), and
various. Anthologies in which his
poetry has appeared include The Golden Jubilee Anthology of
Post-Independence Poetry In English (National Book Trust, India), The Bloodaxe
Book of Contemporary Indian Poetry In English (UK), Verse, Seattle (USA),
Special Issue on Contemporary Indian Poetry in English, Give The Sea, Change,
Fulcrum (USA) and various. Kottoor was visiting poet, Augsburg University,
Germany, and India Guest at the University of Vienna (Austria), in 2004. His
book Father, Wake Us In Passing, appeared in German as a Laufschrift Edition in
2004. He attended the MFA poetry program of the Texas State University,San
Marcos, USA in 2000. Poetry from his
book ‘A Buchenwald Diary’ was listed as a prayer in the book ‘Through Another Lens, Liquori
Books, USA 2011. His Oeuvre includes novels, plays, children’s stories,
literary reviews, lyrics for music, and transcreations. His latest collection
of poems ‘ Victoria Terminus” appeared in 2011. Kottoor has published 9 books
of poetry, 3 novels (the third in press),
2 plays, 2 transcreations , 1 childrens’ book, and edited, ‘ A New Book
of Indian Poems In English’. He is the founder editor of the poetry quarterly ‘ Poetry Chain’. His new
book ‘Vrindavan, The Coloured Yolk of
Love’ will appear in 2012. Film scripts, short stories, a play, novels, a
collection of juvenilia, and a new poetry collection are on the anvil. He
regularly reviews poetry for The Hindu, Literary Supplement.
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AMN: Good morning, Mr. Kottoor. Thank you for agreeing to this
interview. Do tell me something about yourself and how you came to be a poet,
novelist and playwright.
GKK: I was born in Trivandrum,
in beautiful Kerala, which I guess has something mysteriously stinging my soul
and connects me to poetry. The beauty of its inscapes and lake scapes, the
lilies of the rivers and the fragrance of its greenery have something to do as
well. In fact, in the first part of my recently published novel, Presumed
Guilty, there is a lot of me, shaping into a poet. The lonely childhood, the
meeting point with nature, grappling the texture and finesse of female flesh
and beauty, is all me, shaping into a poet. The character was the medium. Good you ask this question, and good I can
open up this way.
I have been a poet, primarily, and a misfit perhaps, as all poets are,
and sure, must be. This world is not a poet’s world! Keats was my great early
influence, with his life, love for wine and desire for hemlock, his loves, his
poetry, self-spite, and letters. When I caught TB at around 23 at Keats’s age,
I didn’t quite think much about it because Keats was still strong on me. I felt
that a true poet had to catch it anyway and secretly felt proud. Luckily there
was a cure. For long years I have
remained a poet, a poet mostly and primarily, and have lived my life that way,
with other influences as Allen Ginsberg both in my poetry and in my life.
I had my first published my first poem in Youth Times
(Bennett & Coleman), when 17. It was a love poem for a girl in school and
went.,.. ‘ I remember you with the towery inflorescence of the mango flowers,
and the caterpillar fruit of the mulberry’. Both the mango flowers and
caterpillar fruit were of my home garden. It was Shiv.K. Kumar who first
published me both in Youth Times and The Illustrated Weekly of India. Thereafter Kamala Das used to give me centre
page spreads often filling it with me in Youth Times. Those events helped me
climb up. Gauri Deshpande published me in Opinion. Anees Jung introduced me in
Quest. The lives of poets that
influenced me made me write my plays, ‘The Mask of Death’ on the dying days of
Keats in Rome, and ‘Fire in The Soul’ on the life of the Nationalist poet
Bharati. It is closeness to nature, and the haunt of childhood recreating the
freshness of reminiscence that is involved in my first novel ‘A Bridge Over
Karma’. Presently I work in a senior
capacity with The Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai.
AMN: When did you first start
writing, what made you feel the need to express yourself in this way?
GKK : As I said, I was around 16, when it happened. I remember a time I
gazed in awe at the kitchen boy next door who read out to me his poems beneath
the champak in blossom by my home, that he hid away from his house lady who
used to burn them. Poor boy. I haven’t heard of him after. I used to marvel how
poetry used to be written, while studying in school. Then, before I knew it,
and bull dozed into calf love by a girl to whom I haven’t ever spoken to, I
started writing poems about her beauty. Then slowly, and painfully the themes
changed. My father, who saw my scribbles, was elated, that his son was showing
signs of becoming a poet, and waxed eloquent about me to his friends. It was he
who salvaged all the early brittle stuff and printed them into my first book
‘Piccolo’ which meant, an Italian flute. The name was chosen by him after
consulting the dictionary. I became what I am in poetry because of him. This I
have acknowledged in ‘Father, Wake Us
in Passing’, which they say is a poem that’ll see me through, and I believe so
too. It is a book that has brought forth tears all over the world wherever I
read it.
AMN: I am reminded G.B.Shaw’s play Candida and concept of calf-love in
it. But that’s a different case. Okay, Please tell me how did you
"discover" poetry? At what age did the light bulb come on for you,
and what poem/poet flipped the switch?
GKK: I have answered this already. From the time I started writing at
about 16+ poetry became my passion. I would do nothing but write poetry, sleep
poetry, dream poetry. I filled notebook
after notebook and wrote at least ten or fifteen poems daily. I have still preserved
most of the notebooks. I still go back to them at times, and will go to them
again after 60 when I retire. I find they can still lend me inspiration. After
I started reading poetry, and it was poetry, poetry, poetry. I read every poet
I came across, I read them deep. I waded through the various techniques the
poets used to bring home the truths of their poems. Poets as Dylan Thomas, R S
Thomas, Norman McCaig, Walt Whitman, Wordsworth, John Donne, (I like him
really) Ivor Gurney, Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, W B Yeats, Robert Frost,
mesmerized me. I hugged modern American Poetry entirely. I think I must have
read at least a thousand poets. It includes Lorca, Yevtushenko, the Haiku
masters (Basho), Mandelstam, Neruda, Heine, Vasko Popa, Sappho, Vidyapati etc.
In India, I was bowled over by the love poetry of Pritish Nandy, and used to
initially imitate his prose poems, but soon gave it up. Of my first published poem, I have already
made mention. Two poets who had a say in shaping my poetic career were, Shri T
K Doraiswamy (Nakulan), the avant garde Tamil writer, and Dr. Ayyappa Paniker, my English professor.
AMN: A few days back, I read your Victoria Terminus. A few months back,
I have published one paper on it in my one of anthologies. The structure you’ve
attained is mesmerizing. Each poem stands on its own; united as a collection;
your pieces form powerfully personal coming-of-age story with a strong
narrative bend. Did you write chronologically, or did you put together the
poems after they were finished?
GKK: They were put together and are selections from nearly all my nine
books of poetry.
AMN: Can you describe your poetry writing process?
GKK: It is difficult, but I’ll try. There is no single way that I
adopt. At times, I find that I write after reading a book of poems that has
moved me. It stirs the process in me and sets it in motion. I write and most
often rewrite. Sometimes I rewrite so often that I lose my original poem. At
times I am inspired to write down a complete poem. I feel that the most
successful poems are the ones that have a lot of craft and mind going into the
poem’s nuances. At times, a reading of my old notebooks helps to begin a poem
afresh. Sometimes, it is a single line, with lines contemplated and following
after, or else it is the whole poem. It has also happened that the germ of some
poem lying unattended within for years suddenly becomes a strong urge within
you to deliver it. One passion may trigger another. Well, it is all about alpha waves, and there is no single way. To
think of it, even a poetry competition can trigger an impulse to write. It
happened to me. I turned a four line poem, called ‘The Coffin Maker’ in one of
my note books into a prize winning entry at the All India Poetry Competitions.
AMN: What’s your editing process like? Do you craft one poem until it’s
done, or do you have several works-in-progress in various stages of
development?
GKK: As I said before, every time I edit a poem, I see a new dimension,
a different world. The poem becomes a crystal globe for gazing into a future
poem that holds the ideal, perfect poem. Many sacrifices may have to be made.
Nowadays I work on my poems directly on the computer and save every draft in
series. It helps. I can always go back to my originals, and look up the version
I think I must see again. It is common
for me to have more than twenty to thirty versions of the same poem. I cannot
be happy with the first version, unless of course I am certain, but that is
really rare. Yes, it has happened often that after I think I have finished a
poem, I still end up making more versions of it. Meanwhile I might have written
other unrelated poems as well.
AMN: When do you write? Are you always composing in your head, or do
you set aside certain chunks of time to work?
GKK I am basically an owl. I live by night. But these days I retire
early. But nothing like night to me for all kinds of creation. No, I am not
always consciously composing in my head.
I do not set aside time that way. I feel that the process of poetry is
like blood running in the body. The blood does its function. Poetry, for which you are ordained, is doing
its job all the while for you whether you are aware of it or not. I let
it. The poetry runs within, taking
resources from all around and stirs it with emotions of all kinds. The poet is
only the outlet, the medium. When the trigger comes, poetry bleeds. Sometimes
the poet in his frenzy at wanting to write his poem looks for it as for a drug,
to help him return to himself. It thus works without and within. Essentially,
when both without and within merge is born the consciousness of the poem.
AMN: You won the Philip McCormick scholarship of the Texas State
University, Southwest Texas, USA and you were Poet-in-Residence in the
University of Augsburg, Germany, on a sponsorship by the Indian Council Of
Cultural Relations,(ICCR) in association with Tagore Centre, Berlin, Germany.
You were also invited to read your transcreation of Puntanam at the University
of Vienna, Austria. Did these experiences leave you with something that’s been
especially useful in your other writing?
GKK: Yes, most parts of Father, Wake Us In Passing, were written and shaped
in a Macintosh computer in the school lab in Texas, and in the plane shutting
between America and India, and behind father’s prescription sheets while he lay
in a coma in the hospital. ‘ A Buchenwald Diary’ grew from my visit to the
Weimar concentration camps in East Germany. A poem from the book, ‘ Bread’ as I said
is recited as a prayer by Sister Benjamin Franklin, of the Adorers of
The Blood of Christ , and published in her book
which includes poetry by
Internationally eminent poets as
well. So these experiences have been my priceless treasure in shaping and
crystallizing my poetry to a great extent.
AMN: Do you have a specific writing style?
GKK: The synthesis of emotion, visual imagery, and colour, is important
to me. As I have said in one of my recent review
articles, I like to remember what Prof
P. Lal wrote to me to whom I had sent my MSS ‘ Milestones To The Sun’
when 24. He said ‘Your poetry is
exceptional. Indeed it is. Lyrical, evocative, memorable, suggestive, and
poignant’. I guess this is what every true poet must aspire to be if he wants
to write lasting poetry. Poetry, if it touches the heart, will live. It can touch with emotion, colour,
suggestion, and evocation. Best, to try and have poetry that is an infusion of
them all.
AMN: What has sustained your relationship with poetry over the years?
GKK: Any form of sustenance is possible only with love and passion. So
it is with poetry.
AMN: I read your short poem ‘Roses in Vrindavan’… ‘When roses fade/
Krishna/ again and again/ you come to my mind/ and make them bloom’. The poem
appears to me a spontaneous and wonderful composition! How did you come across
such a fascinating ideas? Where did the seed come from and how did you develop
it?
GKK: It was a poem that began as a simple love poem. ‘Krishna’ was a
later addition and incorporation into the Vrindavan sequence. The poem was a
normal love poem to begin with. But
perhaps I was already Radha, though the Vrindavan concept had not yet
materialized yet. But I now feel that without my conscious knowledge I was
stepping in that direction- to write the Radha Krishna poems. The poem truly
was my ‘first’ Radha Krishna poem, though I remained unaware. Thereafter out of
a spontaneous feeling, I typed in two
or three poems into facebook in similar vein. By that time Vrindavan had also waded in. Then a few friends on facebook like Priti
Aisola, Tikulli Tiku, Manu Dash, and
Prof Subbarayudu became my gopis, sort of, praising the poems. And the
dam broke.
AMN: While you were writing, did you ever feel as if you were one of
the characters? For example in ‘Roses in Vrindavan’, is Krishna projection of
you?
GKK: Yes, I was Radha, most often, and occasionally, Radha turned to
Krishna, because essentially Radha-Krishna is one, and without Radha, there is
no Krishna. I guess, one essentially has to be Radha first as Krishna himself
cannot otherwise be. She is the spring of the poetry of love that Krishna turns
out to be.
AMN: You write poetry, fiction and drama. How do you handle these
genres at a same time? There’s often a
talk about how the study of poetry can have a positive impact on the novelist
and essayist. Could you share your thoughts regarding this? Also, what hurdles
might a poet face when making the transition from poetry to essays and
novel-length projects or dramas?
GKK: As I said, I do not compartmentalize. My novels, my drama, they are all nurtured in
poetry. Between Poetry and drama, there can be no separation. From poetry to
novel and drama is no hurdle but a flow. The poet is essentially a dramatist;
he lets emotions take on characterization. So Hamlet is a poet, so is Macbeth
and Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s hands. Shakespeare, master poet, is
naturally the king of drama. Every great novelist began as a poet sometime or
the other. Well, poets when they write novels, write poetic novels. The way I write my novels has been
interpreted primarily as poetic. Sitakant Mahapatra says so in his introduction
to ‘ A Bridge over Karma’ that it is a poet’s novel. So did Jayanta Mahapatra eulogize the novel, in one of his
letters to me, after he had read the first few chapters that I had sent to him. Of ‘Presumed Guilty’
my second novel, the poetical narrations have won special acclaim and mention
in the reviews. Is not Hemingway’s ‘The
Old Man And The Sea’ great poetry?
AMN: How did you turn towards writing a novel? Tell us briefly about your ‘ A Bridge over
Karma’.
GKK: ‘A Bridge Over Karma’ was written over a period of around four
years. That time, I was not tuned in to the PC yet, and so wrote down the
entire novel by hand and revised it over and over again. The basic inspiration was our
partially ruined ancestral ‘Tharavad’
house near the Pallana riverfront
in Alleppey, Kerala, with its teak
broken wood stairs, leading up to an attic filled with sand and with bats flying in through the dimly lit
stained glass windows . The germ was the haunting effect of the house all through my childhood days. We used to get
there by steamboat and paddle canoes during vacations. There were coconut trees all around as far as
the eyes could see; and lagoons all around where lilies in their myriad hues
grew and among which the delicious thighed frogs hid; the pink mukkutti and
thetti flowers grew upon their banks. The house had snakes in the cupboards that left eggs broken and skins shed among
the books such as ‘ The Book of Knowledge ‘ in about ten volumes, which great
grandfather had brought from England;
Upon the cracks on the damp floors, termite
mounds grew to around three to four feet. The people who lived in it were my
ancestors who practiced untouchability to core detail. The novel presents a
time when untouchable women were not allowed to cover their breasts, but would
come to thresh the overflowing grain of the high castes. The house, along with
a painting of my great great grandfather, who was known as the Tambran, or The
Feudal Overlord inspired the book. Not only ghosts, but even houses inspire
novels! In many ways the house has also
fostered my poetry. One of my recent poems ‘The Attic of the Gods’ draws inspiration
from the bat infested attic of the house. Memories that haunt you never quite
leave. I have also posted the copy of
the oil painting of great great grandfather who inspired ‘ A bridge over Karma’ on facebook.
AMN: How you turned toward drama.
Tell briefly about your The Mask of Death and Fire in the Soul.
GKK: ‘The Mask of Death’ was born out of my unending passion for Keats.
As I said, I caught TB around his age, but fortunately, cure was around. It was
while attending the Civil services interview and medical examination that the
Koch’s Lung diagnosis was confirmed. Keats haunted me. I learned about poetry’s
need to be crafted and made perfect from Keats. One reason to write the book
was to try and enter the poet with my imagination. I wrote the book with the
help of his letters to Fanny Brawne, and by imagining how his home near the
Spagna would be like. It was a challenge. The book grew on its own, I wrote it
as a spontaneous flow completing the book in two weeks. Frankly, years later on
a visit to the bedroom in Rome in the house where Keats died his agonizing
death, I was fascinated, how close my imagination had taken me to his bedroom
and its ceiling where the painted yellow
flowers were ‘I feel the yellow
flowers already all over me’. I wished to paint the ecstasy of his love,
and the helplessness, and the agony of Keats’s dying. There are readers who
think it is a masterpiece. Well, let it be.
‘Fire InThe Soul’ grew out of a
reading of the life of Subramania Bharati. It is interesting that you raised
the question of the author entering the character. It actually happened to me
in the case of ‘Fire In The Soul’. I not only entered the character. I lived Bharati.
All through the period I was mesmerized into believing that I was indeed
Bharati in my previous birth. Bharati was not just imagination, He was turning
real, I was soon turning into him. Now I am freed of him. I think you enter
your characters, they turn real and possess you. No wonder I felt that I could even have been
Krishna in a previous birth. Sounds like sacrilege. Even to me. I think in a
way all this is what Keats termed as ‘
Negative Capability’.
AMN: You also wrote Wander from the Great Wide Wander Galaxy. What got
you hooked on children’s writing?
GKK: Wander grew out of my stay in Navi Mumbai hills, in Belapur. There
is a hill near the residence where I stayed which stirred my fantasy. The Vashi
creek over which I used to commute daily gave me the idea of the celestial
child falling into the backwaters, and being
rescued by the children.
AMN: There is to your
credit the translation/transcreation of books like-Poonthanam's Jnanappana (Fountain
of God), Kukoka's Rati Rahasya as (Love's Ecstasies). What makes a successful
translation in your opinion?
GKK: A successful translation must attempt to close in on the original,
without losing the boundaries of its spirit. A transcreation attempts that. I
do not think that it is possible to do a cent percent transfer job from one
language to another. But some specialists
do a really good job.
AMN: Which is your masterpiece?
GKK: I think it is better to ask what it is that I like to be
remembered by. Victoria Terminus is a
collection that contains poems I wish to preserve. It contains Father, Wake Us
in Passing, Mother Sonata, and individual poems that have received good
ratings. ‘A Buchenwald Diary’ is a
personal favourite. It has also won rave reviews like ‘Father, and Mother
Sonata’.
It has been said that suffering
and pain is too much in my poetry The
criticism I feel, is farfetched. It is suffering that moves the world. The
greatest paintings such as ‘Guernica’ by Picasso and ‘The Crucifixion’ by Dali
have all been about suffering. If
suffering and pain moves you in poetry or any work of art, it turns the
personal to the universal and abides. To my critics, I suggest that they also read ‘Vrindavan- The Coloured
Yolk of love’ which is soon forthcoming as a book with 214 poems on the theme
of Radha Krishna, which is filled with
colour, sensuousness, beauty and the ecstasy of love. Readers across the world
have already rated it high. There are over a 2000 hits in less than six months for its online
version. The readership simply seems to go on and on. It makes me feel
happy.
AMN: How do you like to be seen by your readers? As an English poet?
Dramatist? Novelist? Or Children’s writer? Why?
GKK: I am known as a poet. In everything that I write my readers see
poetry. Without poetry, perhaps I am nothing. It is not just written poetry.
Poetry is like blood, like breath. I
guess, poetry begins and ends it all. I think it is my blessing and luck to be
known and remembered the way I am.
AMN: What kind of creative
patterns, routines or rituals do you have?
GKK: No patterns, routines, or rituals.
I like to sleep a lot. I do not like to exercise. I like to read poetry
all the time, and to listen to good music in whatever form. I would like to
direct a film, if possible based on my forthcoming novel ‘Hill House’, partly
again based on a true story, that draws on the life and murders of Bela Kiss.
AMN: Are there any authors (living or dead) that you would name as
influences?
GKK: Yes. So many. They are not
really influences, they are milestones to me. Keats, Ivor Gurney, Carol Ann
Duffy, Sharon Olds, Heine, Edward Thomas,
John Donne, Ernest Downson,
Vidyapati, Sappho, Lorca, Swinburne, Neruda, Owen, Yeats, Larkin, Norman McCaig, Douglas Dunn, Dylan Thomas, and many
more have been milestones to me at some point or the other. I have learnt from
them all, and still continue to learn.
AMN: Do you see writing as a career?
GKK: As I said, to me writing that has engaged me has been primarily
poetry. It is to me a part of my life, like blood, like the beating heart.
AMN: What advice would you give to someone out there with a dream to
write a book, but unsure whether to do it or not.
GKK:Go, sit where you think your alpha waves will rise and write it
down.
AMN: What poetry books are next to your bedside table? Why do you appreciate them?
GKK: Modern American, British and European Poetry. They fascinate and
inspire me.
AMN: What are you reading right now?
GKK: These days my poetry reading is mainly online. I read the award
winning pieces and enjoy them.
AMN: Can you share a little of your current work with us?
GKK: My new book, a crime-cum-romance fiction, Hill House will soon
appear. A political satire, Empoeror Banana and The Sovereign Banana Republic
will also be out. I am working on my new book of poems which will follow ‘
Vrindavan’- The Coloured Yolk of love’.
Other books include a play ‘ A Woman In Flames’ based on a true event of
the 90’s in Mumbai involving a famous performing artiste. I review poetry these days regularly for The
Hindu Literary Supplement. I also want to put poetry chain back on wheels.
AMN: Lastly, do you have any advice for aspiring poets and writers of
India?
GKK: Yes. I would strongly advise them to be passionately involved with
their work- and to fear not to delete and start all over again. I would want
freshers to read more and more poetry if they want to be poets, and not be
satisfied to write dishonest poetry just to see their name in print. To remain
cloistered, to publish in trash magazines and to pretend to yourself and to
others that you are a recognized poet is easy.
But ask yourself if you are doing the right thing. To be a poet is to have a lifelong commitment
with words. It is hard work . You’ll know when you hit upon your own voice.
Until then, keep writing. Don’t be in haste to publish trash in the name of
poetry in red light magazines and to join gray groups that will ultimately get
you nowhere. It is best to be honest, have patience, and suffer and write. And
most of all read and enjoy poetry, classic and modern. It sure helps in
moulding the poet in you and giving you direction...
AMN: Who are your favourite Indian English poets?
GKK: I like the honesty, nuances, craft, and attention to detail of A K
Ramanujan, Dom Moraes, and Arun Kolatkar. Some of the other seniors appear to
often get lost in the maze of their narrative poetry and end up repetitive. Among the younger ones, I haven’t seen any
that have brought out a bright substantial corpus or, even a handful that
remains in the memory after they are read,
though there might be individual poems by them. This is a personal observation. The young however seem focused on a lot of
self -pushing these days, when they should be focusing their energies more on
their poetry. Who remembers a Bridges,
Watkins, or Barker who were tall in their time, or reads them these days? Time
has its own way with poets, and poets like Hopkins and Dickinson get ahead and
stay.
AMN: Thanks.. All the best for your future literary ventures.
GKK: Thank you, Mr. Nawale. It has been an interesting session with you
- Capt. Dr. Arvind Nawale
