In the modern times, generally poetry does not seem to be following the poetic conventions set by literary giants of earlier times who followed them and wrote marvellous works. In the present day of poetry writing, Santosh Kumar Biswa's collection of poetry, "The Rhythm of the Butterfly" is beautiful work comprising of 131 poems having the artistic showcase of the exceptional skills and ability of the poet and his effortlessly creative style of writing poetry. The poet appears to be a deeply rooted person of literature and particularly well read in the classical, canonical, well-known and renowned texts of literature and the influence appears clearly in his writing. This deep knowledge and thorough study of the classics makes his work very rich and beautiful. He writes with flair and the smart usage of literary devices only does the work of ornamentation and adds beauty, grace and charm to his writing. The writing is definitely on contemporary subjects and issues but the influence of the classics is very much visible in his work and that is what differentiates him from his mainstream counterparts.
For a person having fine knowledge of poetry writing, metric style, figures of speech, various literary devices and verse pattern, it is easily noticeable how the poet follows the conventions of poetry by following a standard stanza size or even writing in different forms of verse.
He uses the definitions of poetry as given by William Wordsworth and T.S.Eliot and stylistically fits in his own definition of poetry in between them in the beginning of the collection. Apparently, his definition of poetry makes equal sense too.
The poet puts great thought and effort when he writes of diverse themes which include peace, family, women, nature, people, culture and cultural differences. Other than that he explores abstract themes like time, love, teaching as a profession (since the poet himself is a teacher) and beauty not just being limited to the external side. He even explores subjects as simple as a smile, saying no to things, desires, children and dreams.
Often, his poems appear to have literary references now and then. His poem, "My dark lady" reminds the reader of Shakespeare's sonnets addressed to a dark lady. His other poem "The Road to be Taken" reminds of Robert Frost's "The Road not taken" and somewhere appears to be a post modern take on Frost's thought. For a person who has a good literature background, poems of these kinds in his collection offer an interesting insight into the mind of the poet and the changed context with the same subjects years later. Other poems in this regard include, "Let us sing oh! Nightingale" which appears to have the Keatsian influence from "Ode to Nightingale", "Hell" which reminds of Dante's "Inferno" and John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and another poem "Beauty" having a direct Shakespearean allusion etc. Other beautiful poems in the collection include, "The song of my childhood's happiness", "Inside my mother's womb", "O friend of mine! All's friend", "The Rhythm of my Heart", "An interview with my Granny". In these poems and in many more, the poet's genius and flair appropriately comes to life and somewhere the potential of his poems to stand the test of time is also worth noticing.
He has successfully experimented with the Japanese form of poetry writing, Haiku and includes interesting poems in that verse form in the collection.
The poet also tries to write from the point of view of women despite being a man and tries his best to understand and gives words to the feelings and emotions he can not feel exactly owing to the gender differences. Poems in this category include, "Women" and "I am a prostitute".
Despite the poems being highly rich with literary allusions and techniques, the poems remain friendly to the language of the reader and almost all age groups can try reading them. For a person who does not have a literature background, "The Rhythm of the Butterfly" can be one gateway to learning the technicalities involved in the art of poetry writing. Reading this collection can also change people's mindsets regarding poetry being merely all about rhyming of the last words.
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