An Article on Tamil poems

The poetry written from the Sixties to the present times spanning the last fifty
years have to be approached chronologically and from the perspective of
content. The last ten years of the twentieth century witnessed the liberalisation
of the economy and the introduction of postmodern philosophy,which exerted a
considerable influence on literature and it is, therefore, imperative that we
explore their impact on the content and form of poetry.Although the poetry that
branched from Subramania Bharathi's prose poetry in the nineteenth century
acquired the affix puthukavithai meaning new poetry, the word new was
used in the sense of unconventional orwithout grammar. This poetry, which
chose to overlook grammatical rules, took the form of prose. Shaped by
traditional Tamil prose and the influence of colonization, the new poetry
moulded itself on the form and convention of English poetry in the later part of
the sixties. It came to be viewed as a literature, a vehicle of expression for the
common man, the masses. This literary form meant for the masses was shaped
and forged to sing and speak ordinary content. As the rigid grammatical
conventions and rules of traditional literature were seen as a major drawback
when it came to articulating and registering the thoughts and feelings of the
masses, the new poetry which was free of such shackles was born and
flourished. However, it must be mentioned that this new poetry embraced,
explored and expanded the conventional and thematic divisions of agam(endo
or internal) and puram(exo or external) in classic Tamil poetry. The rigorous
labor and craftsmanship that conventional Tamil poetry demanded of its
practitioners was not to be seen in new poetry. When it came to define itself as
modern poetry, the new poetry hovered around the themes of loss, repentance,
search of the self, and alienation. The later part of nineties saw the rise of
feminism, which resulted in poems written about body politics. The poems
written in postmodern style were also less in numbers. This article seeks to
present a general view of the growth, transformation and background of
contemporary Tamil poems.

The poems can be analysed and understood as belonging to three distinct segments:

1. Modern Poetry
2. Postmodern Poetry
3. Feminist Poetry
-------------1. Modern Poetry
The tradition of the nineteenth century continued from Subramaniya Bharathi. The
poems explored contemporary subjects through forms that adhered to tradition and
grammar. After Bharathi wrote prose poems the influence of that form increased.
Professor Tamizhavan, a renowned critic in Tamil, says,"Bharathi wrote vasanam
meaning prose or free verse and not poem." However, Bharathi's prose poem,
colonisation and the tradition of Tamil, combined to spark a search for a new form of
poetry and resulted in the evolution of the puthukavithai or new poetry in the twentieth
century. Against this background emerged an environment where free verse written
without the ornamentation and frills of traditional poetry was also accepted as poetry.
The classic Tamil literature division of agam(endo) and puram(exo) was transformed
and love retained the space of agam while bhakthi(devotion), caste and politics took
over the space of puram. The Dravidian politics, which existed around the time the
Tamil Modern poetry or so-called "new poetry" was born, exercised a unique and
considerable influence on it. The poems published in magazines like "Manikodi" and
Ezhuthu"reflected the influence of English poems. The modern philosophical thoughts
of Freud and Marx defined and determined the space and content for new poetry. In
the Tamil psyche, poetry had always been viewed as a variant, an expression of
nature. It now came to be identified with love and soft feelings. Moreover, poetry was
also seen as an expression of repudiation in Tamil. So it became an articulation of
caste, politics and power. External factors like freedom movement, self-respect
movement, and communist movement, which shaped poetry,kept changing. The
postmodern philosophies that came in with the liberalisation of the economy in the
nineties did not get absorbed much into literature particularly in poems. The prototype
of modern poetry continued. The themes of self-pity, alienation, search for the self,

which existed before the nineties were overworked and so became hollow and diluted
now. Along with the birth of new poetry, the formulation of the basics of populist
literature had also started to form. The new poetry drifted along that current. The
number of poems, which turned away from that flow and which had a deep
philosophical search were very few. Compared to other literary genres poetry was in
the danger of being reduced to a shallow, perfunctory and flimsy medium of
expression. Sadly, this situation continues to this day. Modern poetry was increasingly
moving away from deep, intellectual concerns to superfluous emotions. Emotional
turbulences, absurd dramas, dried up prose, shapeless symbols, and spiritless
metaphors - everything became poetry. Just the communicative function of language
was considered enough for the modern poetry and this trend was perpetuated. The
reader's mind unfurled as poet's mindscape. The conventions of riddles, rehashing of
proverbs and tiresome clichs became the attributes of modern poetry. Few modern
poems were written along the tradition of folklore too.
The following concepts are often touched upon in modern poetry:

Agam(endo or the inner or internal or the self), search for the agam(self), the
disintegration of agam(self)

Alienation, metaphysical, selection of the other

Sexuality, focus on sex, sexual violence

------Turning In and out

Tamil poems were written around the classic division of agam- the inner space and
puram- the outer space. After the sixties when Dravidian politics became deeply
entrenched among the people, there was a sea change in the inner and outer spaces
that constituted the Tamil creative psyche. The literary creations that poured forth
during this period stretched the inner or the agam into the outer or the puram thereby
blurring the lines between them. The agam was defined by the puram. It was puram's
agam or it was internal of the external. For e.g
For me too
Tamil is my breath

but
I won't exhale
on others
-Ganakoothan
In this poem, the self and the language of the self, are in deep crisis. This poem
portrays the self, which is deeply troubled and disturbed by external factors, particularly
the Dravidian political bias that generalises the self and its language.

This poem

pushes away the external factor to safeguard the self. This poem makes a parody of
the Dravidian movement. Another poem
Start Kissing
If your girlfriend comes
when you are
forging ahead
in a rush
without any hesitation
clasp her tightly
and give her a
warm
long,
steady kiss
seeing you
let others too
kiss their
girlfriends
kiss is a symbol of freedom
after kissing
you would forget everything
and unite
in the bus stand
in the railway station

in the library
in the crowded parks
in the super markets
in the clamorous streets of
expanding cities
and narrowing houses
kissing is the only way
don't abandon the kiss
to express your love
to register your adventure
to prove your existence
in the few seconds that are yours
there is nothing better
than a kiss
rarely available
startright away
begin the work of kissing
today
now
this very moment
yes, quick
your next girlfriend
is waiting
advance fast
we are closing towards
the twenty first century
two thousand years
after the birth of Christ
discarding obscene body language
with just a clean kiss
planting a kiss

upon kiss
begin
the epoch of kiss.
- "Kiss", written by Aathmanam
This poem transforms the private and intimate activity of kissing into an external act.
The high-pitched howling of the self is heard in this poem as ideas of what is ones
own, personal desire and solitude have been robbed by the rush of everyday living in
cramped and modern cities.
These poems suggest giving up the attributes of the self in the bid to confront and
negate the blaring artificiality and generalisations of the outer spaces. In Sangam
literature, the attributes of the self, are transposed on nature. On the contrary in the
poems written after the sixties, the features of self, are replaced by external factors.
These poems constructed a movement of the self to counter the Dravidian movement.
In the mid-seventies after the downslide of the Dravidian movement, the poems
couldn't find appropriate contents and therefore groped in self-pity and the search of
the self.
Self and Non-self
In existing, in waiting, in listening, in understanding, in defining, in becoming, in the
process of creating, the self is seen as performing in the arena of Tamil poems. The
self can be considered as existing in the binary opposition of I X You, as materialising
in the becoming of the self or as a residue of the non-self. In writing the self is
inevitably seen as selecting and recovering the historical moments of time and space,
as an expression of sexuality and an outpouring of materialism. The self fills the space
of Tamil poetry as an assertion of the existence of the body, an articulation of the
bodys influence on it and the sufferings it has endured. The self in Tamil poetry thrives

and persists in its relationship with the factors of the natural world and in its
engagement with the metaphorical world.
The "self" gets recorded in the Tamil poems as an arousal of emotions, as a becoming
of emotion and a simmering of emotion. The self is articulated as an endeavour of the
body, an experimental space and a font of power. The self searches for individuality as
though it was searching for truth among the falsehoods of the public space.Self and
Non-self pit themselves in opposing shades- as light against dark, rain against heat,
silence as opposed to sound, and the beast as opposed to god. The "self" in Tamil
poems inhabits non-spaces as a speaker in the poem, as expressed/unexpressed
"self" in the poem and as the "self" constructed by the system. The "self" suffers
unspeakable agony as it is pushed and pulled between its non-human or sub-human
aspects and its efforts to project itself as an expression of the human psyche. Bluntly
propagating the push to the territory and getting proud in that activity is the way "self"
gets defined in Tamil poems.
The "self" is in action by writing the self, writing about its predicament and writing itself.
Stuck in an inescapable magnetic field, the self strives to bestow meaning on life. The
self can be seen as ranting, as hanging by a thread in lines like When you peep into
the "self" it appears that I and You are separate"(Isai); "He may be I"(Shankar Rama
subramanian); "I scan the animal's soul, I am a human being minimally"(Duran Guna)
and "Our meeting didn't take place when we met,"(Iyyappa Madhavan).The poem "I
don't have anyone even myself"(Nagulan) acquaints us with the "self" that has become
non-self and introduces the "self" separated from the "self". The self in Devadevan
asks itself "Do you know how I was before and after writing a poem,and then writes
itself by presenting itself as an answer and by becoming whole in itself.
A poem written by Darmu Sivaram titled as "I"
Who begot me?
World begot in the world
World begot the living species
The root begot in the vacuum

Desolation filled with nothingness

All the revolving planets
Begot that day
My mom
Which is my home?
Dancing god in fiery eyes
Blinked and annihilated
Like the forest without the spirits
Void without anyone
Big space without base
Standing without roof
Is my nothingness
Who am I? Oh Oh
For the question who am I?
Why the voice diminishes?
Worthless thought
Left without forming
Searching for the forgotten answer
In the path with murmuring darkness
Loping around while being born and die
Was I
By positioning itself in the context of birth and death, this poem projects the "self" as an
uncertain constant. The "self" is a floating signifier within the religious symbolism in this
poem. The place in which the "self" resides is a lifeless space. That is a transcendental
place where there is no human being. In that place, patriarchal power gives an
unsecured abode to the "self". It is an inescapable prison. Again and again, the place
refers to death. It is a habitat, which contains the dead "self".
After the new poetry was accepted as a literary form in the post-seventies, it
languished in the search for the "self." The poems written now are extensions of that
process. While there was some originality in the poems written in the seventies and

eighties, the poems written now are stereotypical. It is rare to find differentiation among
them.
Alienation of dry life
After the seventies, the themes of desiccated hope, alienation and exploration of death
shrunk in the poems. The moments of life when one is helpless became the subject of
many poems. Poems that singing about the coming together of time and life and
poems portraying death as a pleasurable game became the vogue. For e.g
Didn't go backwards
Not even moved forward
Present time is in the middle of the well
-C.Mani
Another poem..
At last
Seeing the spoilt state
First poem
Then hope
After that life
At the end the soul
Although
Nothing can be done
-Vikramadhithyan "The Sky is blue "
Another poem.
Is this the first time
You are seeing
The numbers on the phone
Shivering?
Do you feel
The buzz of your ring
Penetrate

the walls of the unvisited moons

the person you are calling
might have been dead just a moment ago
-Shankar Rama Subramaniyan "Eternal jungle"
These poems, on examination, show no change in the form by and large, but give the
reader a jolt at the end. It could be seen that the content and form of today's poems are
a continuity of the poems written by Gnakoothan, Athmanaam, Vikramadhithyan,
Pasuvaiya and Sukumaran.
Continuous union and break
Few modern poems were written with the aim of startling the reader through thesis and
anti-thesis, synthesis and separation, through the juxtaposition of opposites. Such
poems were written in the initial stages. After that, many poems were written parodying
that technique. For example, a poem written by Gnakoothan, goes like this
In the darkness surrounding the vearnda
someone asked
Where to keep the head
Somebody answered
Keep it at hand
To avoid getting stolen
-Gnakoothan "Problem"
According to Tamilavan this poem is surrealistic. While the poem synthesises darkness,
stealing, and head there is also the meaning that "even in the darkness the head won't
get stolen". This poem has been borrowed from the meaninglessness of meanings. For
e.g
Someone said
If you open the head
The brain will look like clay
I don't believe anything
Unless I see with my eyes

I opened my head
I saw power coursing through
The opened iron box
-Gnakoothan
In this poem too, the "head-iron box-clay-power" are synthesised to arrive at an antithesis in "the brain has got power in it". The brain can't be like clay. It is not easy to
open a head like opening an iron box. The idea of "electrical power inside the iron box"
hints that there could be cognitive powers inside the brain.
Following poem is by Isai written after year 2000.
The signpost
Showing the distance to a town
As 3 k.m
Developed a desire
One day
To see that place
As the signpost
Walked on and on
With a yearning
The town
Withdrew further and further
Saying 3k.m and 3k.m
-written by Isai, "3k.m"
In this poem, the subject of a signpost showing distance setting out on a journey
becomes a long and seemingly endless journey of self-exploration. The work of the
signpost gets transformed with the work of town. The head that was opened in
Gnakoothan's poem, after the year 2000, changed into signpost's desire in Isai's poem.
The shock felt by the reader in Gnakoothan's poem couldn't be experienced in Isai's

poem. The writing of the puthukavithai or new poem, which began as a rebellion
against the convention, waned into a mere routine in course of time. As superfluous
themes and ordinary happenings increasingly became the subject of the poems,
modern poetry headed towards deterioration. The modern poem doesn't undergo any
experiment and it is just a natural outflow. So when its primary goal is to become
populist it doesn't care about the hard dimensions underlying poetry. Or it fails to
recognise those dimensions.
Sexual Orientation
In the initial stages of its writing, some modern poems were written with an emphasis
on sexuality. It was expressed as a freedom of sexual desire. A natural way of
expressing sexual appetite could be seen in Sangam literature. In modern poetry
sexual desire is viewed as a means of psychological oppression. Using nature to
express ones sexuality and sexual desire which dates back to the Sangam continued
even in modern poems. After Kalapria, many modern poems combined the themes of
sexuality and spirituality. Moreover, lots of poems were written as articulations of deep
love. For e.g
The sky is a veil
Are sun and moon
Its breasts
That cant be covered over?
-S.Vaidheeswaran "Shadow of dawn"
Another poem..
It falls
And rolls down
From the breast of
Dadichi.(a sculpture in temples)
It falls on the
Sculpture on the top of the tower

and spatters
When I am not looking.
When the beggar woman
At the temple entrance
Suckles her child
A few experience that frenziedly.
-Kalapria
Kalapria's poem equals the woman to god while trying to expand the point of view of
sexuality. These kinds of features could be seen here and there after these poems.
This convention of combining love and spirituality comes from the Bhakthi literature in
Tamil. The frenzied worshipping of God, when seen through the aspect of sexuality,
assumes a folkloristic character.
The trend changed after this and soon soft love poems filled the Tamil literary space.
Many of these poems were similar to the point of being flat and insipid. For e.g
Taking along your twenty eight years old body
You jump and run like a little girl
I follow you
You ignore me
You chase me away hurling a dear Malayalam word at me
You warn me raising your small hand
I still pursue
The moment when I least expect it
You take me in your arms and prattle
I go around you
Like a dog that doesnt know the language
-Mankudirai
Most of the love poems written during this period were cast in this mould(like the above
poem) and not much of an effort was taken to write differently.

It is possible to explore only the superficial features of these modern poems here.
There were many factors, which ensured that the modernity of modern poems was
kept intact. One can see poems influenced by local folklore, prose poems articulating
Dalit themes and other ideologies. Stereotyped creativity and reading could be cited as
the reasons for the modern poems to persist in this fashion. Another reason could be
an unwillingness to leave a known and apparently easy form.
II. Postmodern Poetry
The features of postmodern poetry can be classified as follows:

Self-consciousness

Metafictional Features

Paradigmatic Language

Not having fixed form, against the images of culture, a creation dependent on
magical realism

Creation to which meaning is bestowed by readers

---Along with these features, poems that are out and out experimental in form and theme
can also be added to be characterised as postmodern.
It should be noted that Tamil postmodern poetry began with Nagulan's poems. It
reached a standard form in Brammarajan's poems. It was lively in PredhaPredhan's
poems. Then the poems of that type couldn't be seen much. Yavanika Sriram's poems
stand on the threshold of postmodernity. Postmodern tendencies are visible in poems
of Nesamithran and Sri Lankan Tamil writer HariRajalakshmi. In some others, just the
shadow of postmodernity could be observed.
Nagulans poems were the entry point to postmodernism in Tamil poetry. The world
created by the meaningless accumulation of words in Nagulan's poems gave a sense
of displacement. The poems transformed the reading experience that prevailed until
then.
One of his poems goes like this:

He was sharpening
The pencil
As if chopping someone's head
The Pencil was also
Silent like him
Rather
Had he been in its position
He would have tilted his head
At an angle more convenient to him
Thinking that he could handle even this situation
By his unseen prowess
-Nagulan ' Too much about oneself"
In this poem, the activity of sharpening the pencil and chopping the head are equalled.
The action of sharpening the pencil happens in the real world but the chopping of the
head happens in the psychic world. Too sure of himself the character in the poem
imagines that he could easily handle a situation wherein his head might be chopped.
The poem abnegates the head in becoming like a pencil through reading. The poem
travels between the real world and the psychic world alternatively. A chaotic condition
changing a character into a pencil happens in this poem. This poem is a prototype of a
postmodern poem. This poem looks like an initial creation of postmodern thought.
After Nagulan, Brhammarajan's poems exhibit postmodern features. For e.g
That which floats
In mid-air
Call it nest or planet
Tirelessly have it as a home
The seed germinated in the space
Has to fall on the ground to sprout
Though the flower and the gardener

Are one and the same

Forceless sprayers used to tell
The divine graveyard
Losing the weight and moisture
Copper coloured hay dried up
Swindling
Logical reed
One day
In a single day-written by Brahmmarajan
The seed germinates only in the soil though the home or the nest or the planet is in
mid-air. The gardener who takes care of it gets the energy in Lord Shiva's divine
graveyard to become a flower. The poem announces that the logical fact will one day
swindle like a reed. The sprouting and germinating activities are taken forward as a
clear logic of nature, the reasons for which are not searched by the divinity and both
run parallel from which the meaning of the poem is derived. The bird's nest and the
seed that the bird drops in mid-air creates a magical delusion as imbibed in this poem.
Brahmmarajan's creative world is formed by a field completely different from modern
poetry. His poems require many readings.
Next Ramesh Predhan's poems are postmodern in nature. For e.g
On glass chips embedded on
a parapet wall that lengthens without an end
a word called cat is walking perfectly.
Yes, a word.
If it is followed
it becomes a sentence.
In the long movement of the sentence
if a chip pierces through,
blood running down the side of the wall
it becomes a poem
if you think that its a poem on cat

you will be decieved.

-Ramesh Predhan "A word called word"
In this poem the interchanging of the word as cat and cat as word takes place. The
presence of a narrator can be felt in the poem. That gives the characteristic of
metafiction to this poem. The difference between the narrator in Nagulan's poem and
the narrator in this poem is that the delusion of pencil/man is made natural in Nagulan's
poem while here the word/cat breach is proclaimed voluntarily. It shows that the
happening is self-conscious. For e.g
Movement of the incomprehensible specks of the sound
Minuteness of second
None in the music
Composition of lapping colours
Spreading the designs
Origin was inverted
On the foot
Forgotten fathers
Mothers who remembered
Sons who were just guesses
Displaced limbs
In the presence of astonishment of face
Growing legs
Filling the canvas shoes
Head held high
Wandering mind
In the reflection
Thumb budding in the head
My previous face was a
Cartoon
-written by S.Shanmugam, "Neon Sound"

It could be seen that the subject matter of this poem is different from the one
introduced by modern poetry. If it is seen in a cross-section a description of a family
album is narrated indirectly. Fathers, mothers and sons are all in some kind of
symmetry through a guess. The noise of the flashlight is like a music, which sounds like
nothing. The narrator searching for his own face selects his previous face drawn as a
cartoon. The subject matter of modern poetry is completely erased and a postmodern
base is adopted. In these poems, particularly in the above poem and in Ramesh
Praden's poem the modern man has been eliminated and instead non-human matter
has been filled in its place. These characteristics are considered to be postmodern. For
e.g
Hot fumes rising from a rock in noon
The desolate pond's algae
The prostitute's betel juice
The baby's refluxed mother's milk
A thumb sized burnt lime
Or two snail's shell
And camphor equal to that
A piece pigs gut added and smashed together
And filtered.
If you brew ten drops of this
For one drop dogs will follow
For two drops birds will sit on the roof of the house
For three drops girl will attain puberty before time
For four drops one who had incompatible sex
Will commit suicide
Shake up five drops
Cars will collide on the fly-over
Six drops spill and fall
The ground water will dry up
Seven drops exposed
None can stay at home

In cities because of the aroma

Eight drops shouldn't be used at all
The state minister will die
For nine drops the air would be scared
Women will divorce men
If ten drops were used completely
The universe will seethe and calamity will break
Human without nose
Bird without wings
Fields without bunds
Food without labour
Sex without fatigue
Would crop up
-written by Yavanika Sriram "Ways to prepare perfume"
This poem has found a new way to neglect the big companies producing perfumes.
Through hyperbole and overstatement, this poem mocks the advertisements which
propagate the delusion that the course of life could be changed by perfumes. The
consumer culture, which came after the liberalisation, has changed the life of man.
Poems such as these register a strong negation of the consumer culture. In such
poems with defiance as a characteristic, the side effects of that culture have been
neglected. The poem is revolting against the breaking of culture in the post-liberalised
economy. For e.g
The eyes of the water spider
weaves like the ritual for the departed
Looking at the sky with words
The fire lighting stones hidden in the ancient caves
The anchor in the mid-sea
Swarming iridescent cuckoo-flies
On the dancing floor
A drop of blood

Foliage-dry leaf in confusion

One another hand has lighted the half burnt candle in the church
Which has nothing but a prayer
Embalmed body is sleeping in the coffin
Touching the sun with black hole after passing the era
With her ornamented forehead scattering the ringlet's sound
Waiting to take a dip in the pond found by the Mayan
Is the Martian woman
-written by Nesamithran "Iridiscent cuckoo-flies and Martian woman"
The mythical character Mareesa in this poem turns out to be a woman. This poem has
transformed into a modern discourse of a myth. In this poem, one could observe the
myth and a note on extraterrestrial life have been mixed. One line tells about the
embalmed bodies waiting for the calamity to devastate the universe. In the last line, it
was imagined that the Martian woman takes a dip in the pond made by the ancient
Mayan race. The rituals for the forefathers the prayer made for the return of the divine
Jesus and the imagination of the disbelief of the extraterrestrials mixed as a drama is
fictionalised in this poem. It gives a picture of magical realism. For e.g
The noon that never sets in
Falling falling
Like leaves and leaves cry "hey"
A poem
Pish pish
The word folded in betel
Without nut chewed
And spat as Tamil
Redden-ing/redden-ing
Appeared and dripped
Then got frozen
In Dostoveky's snow
Or Pamuk's snow
None to get going

-written by HariRajalakshmi "Pathetic Fallacies during Exile"

This poem looks like Ramesh Predhan's poem structure. This poem expresses the
creation of a word in the form of metafiction. For e.g
Turtles-2
Cat fish-10(with better fertility)
A mountain with two hills-1
Lotus flowers-2 Diamond Goad-1
Mouth of a tiger-1 and then hair capsizing like umbrella-as per need
All these in the following order
Legs, fingers, chest, eye, nose
Mouth, great crown, till they become the parts
Fried in the high flame is the leader with hair on thigh
Again starts his journey to search for his lover
There meant for him a girl was seasoned
With water lily and soft breasts
Hand sized hip
Importantly with that wide vagina should be put
(to improve the taste)
(For ThiruthakkaDevan and G.U.Pope)
-written by Ram Santhosh "Ingredients to make leader and lover"
Myths are reconstructed through parody is one feature of postmodernity. This poem
also follows that. This poem has been dedicated to the bhakti literary exponent
Thirukkadevar and to G.U.Pope who came to spread bhakti or spiritualism and turned
out to be a translator. If it is possible to create a human being through spiritualism, then
this poem creates people of one's choice and dedicates it to a mythical teacher and
translator of spiritualism. The bodily attributes of male and female features and the
notion of courage are parodied in this poem.
Postmodern poems are less in number in Tamil. Their form and content are
metafictional in nature. Parody, the technology of Internet and communication

transformed into modern values and grievances about the disappearance of modern
features are the contents of postmodern poems and it is constantly changing in Tamil.
III. Feminist Poetry
Feminist ideas could be seen naturally in poems written by women in Sangam
literature. There are many poems expressing sexual urge overtly. After that in Bhakthi
literature, the poems sung by Andal articulated desire in the form of spiritualism. Then
with the advent of new poetry during Bharati's era to this day many women are writing
poems focused on women and centred on women. In the nineties, women wrote about
body politics as a deliberate assertion of feministic ideology. This is also a side effect of
economic liberalisation.
Feminism is not just slogans on freedom to women and making them equal to men. But
it is also putting forward a clear thought on femininity, masculinity and other genders.
Gender is constructed by the society. Gender is not a casual consequence of sex. It is
not an authentication of sex. Sex and culturally constructed gender are basically not
connected. Gender is known through the institution of heterosexuality. Femininity,
masculinity and other genders are constructed through difference. It is an assumption
to fix these in a body. The body is common. It is a mixed collection of all genders.
Gender is constructed because the heterosexuality produces all discourse and power.
If this understanding is to be followed then the gender trouble can be avoided in
writing.
Feminism is not opposing men as clearly postulated in the ideology of Julia Christeva.
When the mother serves the child its subjectivity was not formed completely. While
learning the language, while the need for forming the subjectivity arises, while
pressurised by the culture, the crisis occurs to choose the gender from the language of
culture. With the help of mother's vision the baby could observe everything, now it has
to see with its own subjectivity. It seeks the other to construct the self. At that time it
chooses the gender in the cultural language. From that moment the performance of
gender starts. This is how the gender is constructed through society. The first and
foremost challenge is to identify the gender orientation.

When one writes on women centred themes, it becomes an articulation, a passionate

revolt against the oppression that women undergo. It somehow appears to have an eye
on the consequence rather than on the source of the problem. Though such kind of
writing is necessary, awareness of the cause for oppression coupled with postmodern
sensibilities would strengthen and catapult feministic writing to the next level. The
feminine occurrence happens when mind as body and body as mind are connected
together. Equating the needs of a woman's body with those of a man, the perception of
equality as freedom and last but not the least the assumption that liberation is going
beyond limits of the body only lead to logo-centric or phallocentric language structure.
The subjectivity based on heterosexuality dictates that femininity should adopt
masculinity as its base.
Through the formation of the other by the masculinity a binary opposition was devised
from which manifold creations were shaped. The subject matter of feminism focuses on
the other called the male. The socialisation of gender has been forgotten. Or the
discourse on gender has not been formed. A language opposing male has been
assumed as a proper one for female.
Poet Aavudaiyakkal the contemporary of Bharati has written poems on women's
liberation. For e.g.
Because of stigma three days driven out of home
Fourth day at the crack of dawn well bathed
Fifth day also took bath due to orthodox belief
You will touch the content in the mind then will the stigma get cleared off from the
mind?
-written by Aavudaiyakkal
This type of agitation of the consciousness as expressed by women is identified as
feminist writing in Tamil. The poetic space has shrunk and the roar of opposition
sounds in a high pitch in these poems. But these kinds of values, hidden meanings,
silent talks, are to be recognized as the creative forms expressed openly. Another
poem

Storms lashed
They became dust
Flower and dust
Filled my mind
Rather they are I
In pitch dark, the water fell and gleamed
Smile blossomed in tears
I got the boon to remain in irretrievable sorrow
What is the hesitation in walking in that path?
This is breath
I am not hesitant of sorrow
Haven't sunk in its deepest depth
Haven't got scared with rumbling sea
But in tears
I ponder
Why! That is my life
-written by Saraswathy Ramnath "My Life"
This sort of inexpressible sorrow, sadness and suffering are the stuff of womens
poems. For e.g
Cat glances
Tear to open our clothes
And pierce our skin
Eyes had become hands
Hands had become stings
Carried by our co-passengers
We noticed
After a long time
We looked inside
-written by R.Meenakshi "We looked inside"

R.Meenakshi who wrote during the era of the "Ezhuthu" magazine expressed the
liberation of women not as politics but a slight murmur in her poems. Following her
footsteps, women poets focused on bringing out the sensibilities of women in their
poems. Another poem
In each leg
Lust has become the
Spring of dance
Poison was stuck in the stingbewitched
Curled in the carnal appetite
Grasping the male spider
Slowly with passion..what a taste
Killed
The female spider sucked the blood
The giant end which drilled the moon
Pulled and tied to the top of the hill
And the other end she ties
To the waiting moment of the crocodile
She spreads as net of millions of yearnings
Other insects like mere fibers
The dead organs of male spiders
Strewn on the threshold of female spider's prison
Through the pores of dream
Dripped and stagnant
Lusty sea's waves flow
In the stomach of the spider
Appearing from the spider woman
Along with the elongating cobweb
Rising as extraordinary powers
Growing big transgressing the world
-written by Anar "Home of female spider"

The female spider here can be a woman. It can be taken as the compilation of feminine
nature. The feeling of liberation of woman has turned into the feeling of a spider. From
the poem, it could be understood that there is a cultural formulation or monotone in the
feeling of liberation. The poem shows various means of liberating oneself from the
bondage of the feminine. When the feminine is to be liberated from mere bondages this
sort of creativity is possible.
These kinds of poems belong to a modern category and give a feeling that they don't
get transformed to the next level of feminism. This is accepting the ideology of
phallocentric language. This is common for men, women and all genders. To overcome
this block, creative works with shock value were produced. For e.g
The night shuddered
Crumbling the stars
When dream becomes gigantic
Chemical is turning poisonous
Tears not able to fall
Dreams getting fossilized in the dark
Anxiously coiled blue nerves of the lust
Touched him or the other one
I sharpen every word of mine
Through my teeth
Inside the lungs storm of air
Inside the heart current of blood
The breasts were suspending after got ripened
In both of the bowls lie
Solid poison
Each drop of the blood that got accumulated
Could penetrate the mountain
I have filled in your cup as a tasteful food

In this party
Now you can taste me!!!
-written by KuttiRevathi, "Lustful enzyme of poisonous virgins: last supper"
To show that the women's life was also filled with lust many poems were written as
exaggerated expressions of lust. These poems have imbibed the feminism in a
nutshell. The primary form of body language is to express the suppressed feelings of
women and to show the encased and hidden uprising of phallocentric language. This
was taken forward by the women who wrote during the nineties. For e.g
Long time ago her grandmother took her husband
To the prostitute's house in a basket
Father has a family in every other place
Constructed the dandy-cart and went there
Husband raped the weed-picking women
threatening them, elder son
sold few grounds and spent the money on call-girls
On hearing the sound of the drum
in the festival of the rural place
the younger son started after bath
Giving him washed clothes
Asking him to come and eat on time
She being known everything
Spoilt is her thought cruel is her humility
-written by MalathiMaithri "Spoilt is her thought cruel is her humility"
This poem parodies a song from Sangam literature's Purananuru. To question the
masculine power, and to counter it with feministic theory, the courage of women
described in Purananuru has been reduced to women's slavery and it has been
criticised in this poem. Another poem..
Like this
The other day it happened at home

Cycle, car, no legs for fish

He played a first class song
Don't speak filthy language in "orambo"
(go on the side-a programme title)
Imprisoned me by singing and singing(a lyric from a movie song from the sixties)
Haha
If woman laughs everything will be gone
Then the story will laugh all together
Hands and legs sprouted in the story
Male's penis and woman's power
Going to various homes
Is called "kalasam"(dome-a tv serial title), "arasi"(Queen), "kolangal"(Pattern)
We will lighten up the lives of downtrodden
Come dancing of deer and peacock (programme title)
Leader has already scolded
Won't you keep your hand and legs inactive
Pea, sundal(stewed food), dry ginger coffee
Ok ok just for killing time
You ruffian don't take my life out
While watching the match
Do you like
Cauliflower pakkoda(food item)
Along with Bacardi Rum
If you are born you should be born like a
Tamil writer
To get a patron
My life my life (song lyric)
Ringtone in daughter's phone
Messages are coming with ding sound
Which scoundrel is that
Why arthritis is common now

My life exists in a cup

Who is that great poet
Nowadays
What they write and tear
Urine, nipple more than that
Body language too
A group is wandering they
Also read Kalki(a writer) and
Got broke-down
Sir
Would Kundavai(a character in popular PonniyinSelvan Novel) had relationship
In supine position with
Vandiyadevan(novel character)
Who knows
Shakeela(movie actor)'s tears
Very big yes big
Yes yes very big
Filling the cups
It is not enough
Assistant director
Why during talking
Even while spitting
Is like Marquez(Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Women actor's lives are bundle of sorrows
Is the research by
The humanities department's
Girl student from America
So vulgar
Filled the 800 paged dissertation
With her tears
Read the literary supplement of The Hindu (Newspaper)

Today living a long life

Yes, man, that is it
Reclining face down
That tomorrow
Would tsunami come
Expecting a change
Your loving friend
-written by Perundevi "Cross-talk or Cross-race"
Everything seen on the internet and other worlds have been accumulated here. This
has turned to be the real world. The values have fallen and become slushy and
entangled. The world has become a place women power is falsely established against
the context of a relationship with a phallocentric man. This poem is filled and
overflowing with the dialogic imagination as Bhakthin had described. These kinds of
writing are rare in which postmodernism and feminism are combined together.
The awareness of next level of thinking in feminism by writers and theoreticians had
been stalled in a big way. So the feministic poems have also become stagnant.

For the past fifty years, Tamil poems have continuously followed only modern

characteristics. So from the beginning of new poetry to the present day there has been
a gradual decline in its quality. The anti-Dravidian movement was first initiated by new
poetry. After that, it shrank to themes around alienation and desiccation of hope. Then
search for the "self" occupied the poems. So the poetry didn't really bloom. Good
poems were written occasionally like quick flashes. They were just exemptions. After
nineties, feminist poems came to rely heavily on its shock value. They have also
become stagnant. In postmodern poems occasional experiments took place. The
usage of language has not changed greatly in these poems. Mostly today's modern
poems are stereotypical in nature. These modern poems are written with the bid to
become popular. Though the world created by the postmodern poems is capable of
breaking language, culture and custom it pretends that it is deficient in continuing the
modern values. Feminist poems choose binary opposition as man and speak of the

taste of liberation. Because of the lack of a proper perspective of the next level of
feminist theory, fresh creations could not be seen. The clich of body politics is
repeatedly employed in feministic poems. Poems with folklore features have also been
written. Poems based on Dalit ideologies are being written nowadays. They aim to
provoke instead of offering the reader a poetic experience. In short, a regeneration and
resurrection of the true poetic impulse are yet to occur. The need for such a revival
should be understood by writers.
Bibiliography:
1.Vallikannan-New Poetry-Origin and Growth(In Tamil)
2.Prof.S.Shanmugasundaram(Ed), Twentiety Century Poetry II Volumes-Tamilavan
Articles, Kavya, Chennai-2011(In Tamil)
3.Riyas Qurana, Modern Poetry is dead-Mattrupiradhi blog.
4.Poems from various websites have been quoted.
5.Judith Butler-Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity,
Routledge, New York, 1990
6.Julia Kristeva, Approaching Abjection
University Press, New York, 1982

Powers

of

Horror,

Columbia

7.Joseph Conte, Unending Design The forms of Postmodern Poetry, Cornell

Univesity Press, New York, 2016