Analysis of There was a Country by Yasmine Goonarathne

 

Yasmine Gooneratne (born 1935) is a Sri Lankan poet, short story writer, university professor, essayist. She is popular in Sri Lanka due to her patriotic works in the field of literature. Currently, she resides in Australia. 

The poem, written in 1981 in the collection of poetry 6,000ft Death Dive, categorized under post-colonial literature. 1981 is a period of turbulence in Sri Lanka where there was a series of ethnic riots and in 1981, the renowned public library in Jaffna was burnt down by a set of violent mobs. The poem was written in such kind of social backdrop where the society had been deviated and drifted apart from good human values; destroying the largest collection of literature in Southern Asia is a dark extension of it.

You may read: Comments Made on the Society in the Poem Big Match 1983 by Yasmine Goonerathne here.

The poem shows the irritation and worry about what has happened to a country where it was rich in folk literature and nourished by simple style of living and Buddhism. As many critics reveal, the colonization has directly affected the peace and orderly country nourished by a rich tradition.

 

There was a Country

 

There was a country where fine poems lay

Close to the surface. Under every hedge

Each passing shower would bare a glittering edge,

No stream but sifted, yielded poetry.

 

The poem may be suggesting the rich tradition of poetry which was closely attached to the lifestyle of the people and nature of the Sri Lankans. In fact, poetry has been a part of villagers. They had a folk tradition of poems for almost every occasion and event in their lives and it had been passing from generation to generation. The villagers were very close to the nature and they related and recited poems about the natural elements and animals and they had a quite rich folk lore that went hand in hand with nature and life. ‘Each passing shower would bare a glittering edge, No stream but sifted, yielded poetry.’ Shows the abundance and the close relationship of poetry and the nature in the lives of past villagers.  

 

I kicked a stone aside in irritation

And saw its under-surface start to gleam

And there beneath my feet there waited seams

So rich, the merest movements brought creation.

 

Poet’s irritation about the lost tradition of rich literature due to colonization and violence is clearly visible in the first line. She shows that though they are submerged, the roots of traditional poetry still remain in the country hidden and waiting. She expresses that those hidden folk tradition of poetry possess the ability to express their emotions spontaniously in a rich and aesthetic way.

 

Here it is not the same. Through poetry

Occurs, they say, I have not glimpsed it yet,

Stumbled upon or caught it in net

Of words. I feel that poems here must lie.

 

‘Here’ implies the chaotic period of 80s; after several waves of racism which swept over the country after having liberation – sweeping off the simplicity of humble folk traditional poetry or art as a whole, what remained after colonization and westernization. In the past, poetry was a part of people, it delivered their true emotions spontaneously according to the situations and events. It showed their true emotions, happiness - helping them to ease the sadness and tiredness in their lives. According to the poet, the contemporary poems are not a part of the people and they do not resemble the true emotions of the mass. She says that the poems are not spontaneous and the word choices are not the right ones but random words come to the poet’s mind which do not convey the precise emotion of the poet, suggesting the emotional voidness created by the outer atmosphere of the country, which is not free, violent and hostile. Here ‘lie’ is a word pun which give two meanings: lying and existing.

 

Deeper than opals, deeper far than oil

And all the tools I am accustomed to

-love , anger, pity, with – will hardly do,

Blunt as this air has made them, for such toil.

 

Last line of third stanza runs on to fourth stanza, showing that the poetry, in those periods of time, were buried very deep, deeper than the places under soil where gems and crude oil found. That shows the deviation of the art from the common mass at the time. According to the poet, the common human emotions which are the subject matters to write poetry worked no more with the kind of the society that she lived in. The value of spontaneous human values has got no validity to a country which has been ‘blunt’ by the inhumanity spreading even in the ‘air.’

 

There was a country where, when sorrow grazed

The heart but once the Muse brought forth her plenty

By twos and fours, half dozens, dozens, twenties.

The mine seemed inexhaustible, a dazed

 

Discoverer, wondering, merely poured them down

on paper. Grief would need to strike so deep

here, that I’d rather let creation sleep

than mine the diamonds for a poet’s crown.  

 

Fifth stanza shows what art had been meant for the people in the past. The poetry could bring happiness when they engulfed in sadness. ‘When sorrow grazed’ their hearts the poetry written in various numbers of lines like 24, 12 or 06 could bring multiple streaks of happiness into the sorrow-stricken hearts of them, bringing happiness or muse. Last line and the sixth stanza reveal the untiring effort of the poet to produce the lines of poetry to imbibe the lost genuine emotions back into the people. She claims that her genuine efforts are to relive the lost poetic tradition in the country, but not to seek mere fame as a famous poet.

As history reveals, Sri Lanka had had such a beautiful poetic tradition as a part of their lives. The poet might not imply about poetry but art as a whole, the art which nourishes the hearts of human beings making them empathetic and more human. The poet is clearly worried about the people in the country who has lost their humanistic emotions and filled that space with hatred and violence.

 

The poem was analyzed under the light of the historic details and the situation prevailed during the period of time. You may have a different view about the poem, which is natural as poem is a painting which can have different interpretations. What are your views about the poem? Please leave a comment below about your idea. Share the post if you find it useful to others.