Summary of the Poem:
According to the poet, those who are extremely interested to observe and study of the different kinds of birds or some rare birds, never remain in hurry. They cannot do their task at fast speed because they will have to spend great time in the study and observation of the birds. They have to study the nature and activities of the birds. Sometimes they spend several hours in waiting and watching for the birds. If they want to study and observe about the rare birds, they have to stay at one place to wait for them. If they force themselves to do their work at the appointed time, they cannot get the best result in their task. If they continue their task and never remain inactive and motionless, they get the favourable results in their respective field. Similarly those who study women's nature and their tendencies, have to pursue the women to carry on their observation. For this purpose they choose their beloved because their beloved can be more helpful for this study, hence they watch her carefully, but it also takes great time.
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| Summary and Critical Appreciation of the Poem Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher |
The best poets are those who do not force themselves to write poetry at any and every time. The best poets wait for the expressive and suitable words to come to the tips of their pens. When they are completely exhausted of the thoughts and words, they at once stop writing and wait for the words, thoughts and inspiration. When their minds are illumined, they start writing. The poems of the best authors are written spontaneously. The writing of the poem should never be a laborious task because a good poem is never written as a matter of toil. If a birdwatcher wants to find a unique bird, he has to wait on a hill to observe the movement of a rare bird. A lover has to wait patiently for his beloved until she surrenders herself to him in due course. The beloved surrenders to him after she has convinced herself of his love. The lover cannot force himself upon her in order to hasten the process. If a man waits long enough , the beloved would feel convinced that he loves her and then she would no longer wait but would herself surrender to him even though she may think that she is taking a certain risk . In these two examples (namely that of the birdwatcher and of the lover) the poet would find the right parallels and would be able to draw a moral for his own guidance. He never begins writing a poem till he experiences an urge from within to write a poem. The best poets are those who do not force themselves to write poetry at any and every time. The best poets wait for the expressive and suitable words to come to the tips of their pens. When they are completely exhausted of the thoughts and words, they at once stop writing and wait for the words, thoughts and inspiration. When their minds are illumined, they start writing. The poems of the best authors are written spontaneously. The writing of the poem should never be a laborious task because a good poem is never written as a matter of toil. If a birdwatcher wants to find a unique bird, he has to wait on a hill to observe the movement of a rare bird. A lover has to wait patiently for his beloved until she surrenders herself to him in due course. The beloved surrenders to him after she has convinced herself of his love. The lover cannot force himself upon her in order to hasten the process. If a man waits long enough , the beloved would feel convinced that he loves her and then she would no longer wait but would herself surrender to him even though she may think that she is taking a certain risk . In these two examples (namely that of the birdwatcher and of the lover) the poet would find the right parallels and would be able to draw a moral for his own guidance. He never begins writing a poem till he experiences an urge from within to write a poem.
The poet thinks that slow movement is of greater value in every sphere. It seems to be better than the quick one. There is no doubt that the slow movement not only brings reward and happiness but also provides the best results to one who is studying and observing in any particular sphere . If a birdwatcher wants to find the rare bird for deep observation and study, he has to go to some deserted places and to some spot near the source of a river which is flowing silently, or to seashore. The birdwatcher has to endure great pains and troubles to reach these places and sometimes he has to spend greater time in waiting and watching for that unique bird. Indeed it is as difficult to reach such place, as to know the mysterious working of the human heart. We do not always know what is going on in the depths of hearts and minds. There is the sub conscious mind; and there is the unconscious mind too just as the mind has its hidden regions, so there may be seashore which is remote from our places of work or from our dwelling - places and there may be thorny bushes near such a seashore. So, the birdwatcher has to undertake the labour of travelling to a distant and thorny seashore. In this way, the bird - watcher must have a lot of patience. A lover too must have a lot of patience because he too has to wait till , from a human being of flesh and bone , she turns into a spirit radiating light though at the centre of her there is still a mystery which is difficult to understand . To the lover, the woman no longer seems to be a physical presence; to him she now appears to be all light and radiance. Similarly a poet needs a lot of patience to compose a poem. A poet, who was previously feeling puzzled or perplexed by things, would be able to write or to compose the poem when the inspiration dawns on him and when his mind is illumined. If the poet has the patience to wait for the right moment, his mind would be illumined. At the moment of illumination, man's faculties of hearing and seeing are restored to the poet, but for the restoration of these faculties, patient wait performs a vital role.
Critical Appreciation of the Poem:
Introduction:
Ezekiel holds his own vocation of a poet in a very high esteem. In quite a few of his poems, he has expressed his own view of his art. The best examples of poems of this genre are Poetry, Creation and Poet, Lover and Birdwatcher. The poem Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher is contained in The Exact Name, an anthology of Ezekiel's poems. There is a comparison drawn between the poet, the lover and the birdwatcher, in the poem. All the three have to wait patiently for their various objects of interests. Waiting is a strategy for them to succeed in their pursuit. It is the patience and the waiting that finally rewards all the three with success. Ezekiel has made an attempt to define the poet in terms of a love and a birdwatcher. The three categories of people can identify with each other; they respectively search for words, love and bird. The three are one and the same in essence, only their pursuit is for a different goal.
Thought - Content:
In the first stanza, the poet strikes a parallel between the poet, the lover and birdwatcher. All three - the poet, the lover and the birdwatcher have one thing in common, that is, to watch the movement and wait patiently. The birdwatcher has to wait patiently the movement of the fluttering wings of the bird, the lover has to observe patiently the calm and dignified movement of the beloved, and the poet has to wait for the right moment when his mind is illumined and when inspiration dawns on him and the right words spontaneously come to him. In the second stanza, the poet says that the slow movement in the three cases is rewarding. The birdwatcher is rewarded when the bird is suddenly caught in the net or suddenly comes to his sight. The lover is rewarded when the beloved gladly surrenders and patient poet gets inspiration to compose a fine piece of poetry. It is all the more rewarding. If the birdwatcher wants to observe birds of a rare kind, he has to go to deserted places or to a place somewhere near the source of a river. If a lover wants to get a favourable response from his beloved, he too has to wait till she melts towards him. In the same way, a poet imagines himself as flying through the air and waits restlessly until his mind is enlightened and he can be able to produce a poem.
Imagery and Symbols in the Poem:
The imagery in this poem is vivid and striking. What is striving about the use of images in this poem is that the transition from one image to the other is so unobtrusive that the poet, lover and birdwatcher lose their separate identities for once and merge into one another to carry the poem forward to its end. In this lyric, the literal and the symbolic merge and become undistinguishable. The poet or the birdwatcher begins by defining the mood in which all those who study birds or women place themselves —birds or women symbolize freedom, imagination, love and creativity. A posture of stillness is recommended, because it is in stillness that one listens to the soul. a necessary prerequisite to the study of freedom and creativity . That is why the best poets always wait for words from the centre of stillness before they articulate their experience. The words “patient love relaxing on a hill / to note the movement of a timid wing " are literal when applied to the birdwatcher but become a wonderful symbol for the poet's wait for the right words and the right images , or the lover's wait for the moment when the beloved will turn to him . Birds turn into words, the remote shore to which the birdwatcher goes to “watch the rarer birds “turn into “the heart's dark floor” where the poet looks for themes and images.
Style and Language:
The poem has a rigid structure, which is based on iambic pentameter lines, in two closely rhymed ten lines stanzas. This is justly celebrated poem, containing a beautiful worked set of images moving, as the title suggests, on three interpenetrating levels. The rich quiet density of the texture is most impressive and is helped by a new, but still minor, breaking of the formal pattern. For instance, in the twenty lines we find ten run - ons — a far higher proportion than in most poet's traditional poems— which allows the syntax much more scope in defining space and emphasis and in following emotional and intellectual rhythms in a natural way . The sentences are much longer than usual, exactly embodying the urgent but meditative movement of the experience. At the beginning of the second stanza the pentameter breaks under the poet's visionary and metaphoric intensity. Line of stanza two has a five and a half feet and line three has six feet; the run - ons and the juxtaposition of short and long sentences provide a rhythmic tension and a sense of feeling and perception moving inevitably forward through complexity towards resolution, helped not hampered, by the metrical pattern.
