FREDDIE KISSOON Saturday, August 30 2008

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GUSTAV'S DESTRUCTION: Residents wade through a flooded street following heavy rains caused by Tropical Storm Gustav in Kingston, Jamaica yesterday. Gu...

“KAVITA is for the believer. For everyone who has ever uttered the words ‘Our Father’, this book is an additional word of prayer. The poetry of Ruffina does not speak to us but sings an unforgettable melody of love, joy and beauty to our deeper consciousness. A creative musician has material here for endless gospel songs which the poetess drew from the fathomless well of the Truth that is Abba - Father.”

The first question is, “What is ‘Kavita’? Answer: It is a book of poems soon to be published. Second question - “Who is Ruffina?” She is a true born Trini who has been living in Missouri in the USA with her husband and two daughters for the past ten years. She has her MA in International Affairs and teaches Transcendental Stress Management. And finally, “Who wrote the above?” I did.

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from Mrs Ruffina Anklesaria, asking me kindly if I would read her book and write a few lines about her poems. To myself, I said, “O Lord! I can’t even find the time to read some books I have and now this!” But such a request coming from a charming lady - a divine blend of beauty and brains, cannot be refused.

She reminded me that she had worked at the Japanese Embassy in St Clair for 18 years and her brother Robert was studying electrical engineering at UWI at the same time with my first son Richard. I suggested, that since she lives in Missouri she should learn one of their popular folk songs “Shenandoah” in which the Missouri River is mentioned. In the haunting sea shanty, the verse - “Away, I am bound to go across the wide Missouri” is sung several times. “Shenandoah” is one of my favourites from primary school days, and sometimes, I listen to it on a CD by Paul Robeson.

Ruffina wanted to send me the favourable comments of Professor Nanora Sweet, Chair of the Department of English at the University of Missouri, St Louis but I insisted that I didn’t want to be influenced by the opinion of anyone. She sent the book by e-mail to Richard who came home and installed it as an icon on my computer.

After reading the poems, I wrote the above but I rang her and suggested that if she wanted the views of a brilliant Trinidadian poet, she should contact Mr Cecil Gray.

He was awarded the Daily News prize for poetry by The Caribbean Writer in 1997. He has published 25 textbooks for use in West Indian Schools and also six books of his poems - “The Woolgatherers”, “Lilian’s Songs”, “Leaving the Dark”, “Plumed Palms”, “Careenage” and “Only the Waves”. I have enjoyed reading aloud and recording poems from five of these books in my possession.

But the contrast in poetic styles of Mr Gray and Mrs Anklesaria, is as wide as the Caroni River yet both are beautiful in their own way. Ruffina has chosen to write mainly in metrical rhyming couplets while Mr Gray has mastered the modern free verse style that does not rhyme but is also filled with imagery, making use of similes, metaphors and other figures of speech.

Ruffina says, “Poetry is the poet’s humble attempt to give words to unspeakable beauty, to give form to formless emotion, to express the inexplicable love of God and to create music from words.”

Here is a small sample from her ample table of KAVITA (Hindi word for poetry). In “My Heart Greets Yours,” Ruffina wrote in a four line stanza - “My heart is happy for these days of light / When love makes life all full and bright / Thoughts of you linger all day long / An endless flowing loving song.” A couplet from “Time” says, “The things which charm us along life’s way / Shine and glow then fade away.”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English poet and dramatist, has Theseus say to Hippolyta in “A Midsummer-night’s Dream” (Act 5 Sc 1) “The lunatic, the lover and the poet / Are of imagination all compact.”