Manohar Shetty’s Full Disclosure: New and Collected Poems (1981-2017) published by Speaking Tiger is both a celebration and culmination of a poetic life. At the centre of these poems is the domestic —rooms and half-finished houses, the comfort of an old shirt. There is great insistence upon the ordinary, odes to the quotidian. But life, in a Manohar Shetty poem, is always being interrupted by something wilder — bronzebacks, rats, porcupines, termites, lice. Stray dogs and cats vie for space in stanzas. On the periphery, there is wonder — “white throats of hibiscus,” “the strange maternal jackfruit,” a “cockroach tumbling out like a family secret.” As Dom Moraes put it, the poems “flourish in isolation.” And yet, connections to the outside are constantly being made — sometimes with reverence, as in the memory of old friends; sometimes mischievously, as with the body builders and blondes on Baga Beach. The poet is luddite, magician, quiet mourner — never gregarious, never speaking from great heights, but insisting, quietly, that poetry is necessary. Excerpts from an interview:
Tell me about the idea to do the new and collected poems.
After eight books I felt it was time. I didn’t seem to have anything more to add to my oeuvre. That’s a rather grandiose word (laughs). I’ve left out several poems and resisted the temptation to make changes, especially in the earlier poems. When you look at your work 35 years on, you think, I could have done so much better, but you have to realise that it was done at a particular age.
You’ve been writing poetry since the early 80s. How has the poetry scene changed since then?
When I started, Bombay was the epicentre of poetry. All the poets seemed to come from there. I can’t ascribe any particular reason to it. Nissim Ezekiel, Adil Jussawalla — whose home was a place where lots of poets gathered, Kamala Das’s soirées , to which I went once or twice. Arun Kolatkar who was present at the Wayside Inn every Thursday. It was happening. Melanie Silgardo’s Newground and Adil Jussawalla’s Xal Praxis were the early pioneers of poetry publishers in Bombay who brought out my first two books back in 1981 and 1988, so I’m particularly indebted to them.
For someone who had that kind of a strong community of poets, what was it like to leave Bombay and come to Goa?
In the beginning I was quite lost. There was a gap of 16 years between my third and fourth book. There was a certain amount of displacement and also the deceptive nature of Goa itself. After Bombay it seems like such a languid place, and the kind of poetry I write requires a certain amount of tension. Not emotions recollected in tranquillity in the Wordsworthian sense. My work has more of an urgency within me without which I can’t function. But once that barrier was broken, the poems suddenly came in a flood.
From then to now, has poetry remained the central thing?
For me poetry has been the pivotal thing. I write short stories as well but they’re secondary to me. Poetry has defined me. Also, the nature of the poems I write have is in a kind of quasi-confessional mode, personal yet with public appeal. I’m not a socialist poet. So in that sense it has been a kind of art with to which I achieve a certain balance within myself. I feel very uneasy if I don’t have a poem for a couple of months.
There’s a certain interiority to your work, the domestic being the place from which the narrator then relates to a larger world.
I think a lot of confessional poetry involves that kind sphere within yourself. It’s like watching yourself from a distance, a certain amount of detachment, like a naturally schizoid personality. Many poets live that duality — more so in a country like India where the public is so scarce. We increasingly tend to have our audience amongst fellow poets, which is not the most ideal situation to be in.
Many of your poems also have to do with the art of poetry and what it means to be a poet, why is that?
I hadn’t actually noticed and it’s purely subconscious. Maybe because we’re a lost, forgotten tribe and it’s a way of asserting ourselves in our philistine, consumerist society? Perhaps they are a substitute for performance poetry? Though, of course, the metaphor can be extended to include other forms of neglected art… I don’t write the kind of poetry which is popular now — stand up, performance, spoken word — all that I appreciate from a distance, but it’s not the kind of poetry that involves me, or that I can relate to. I don’t expect my poems to last till eternity but at least, if they last for a few years it’s good enough for me.
You have an affinity for wildlife and critters, and the narrator of your poems, while not misanthropic, is certainly scornful of people…
That’s true. Animals don’t wage wars. There’s a whole menagerie of animals in my poems. It’s not that I’m overly fond of pets, it’s just that the first poems that really struck me were Ted Hughes’s and D.H. Lawrence’s animal poems. A poet, for me, is something like a ventriloquist. He steps into the shoes of not just animals, but also a kind of mental attribute. You can personify a shadow or a feeling of rage or anger. The eye is universal. I don’t see many Indian English language poets doing this kind of personification.
I feel Indian English language poets are pariahs in a way. You’re made to feel quite irrelevant.
I agree with you. But we are the most persevering of artists. No matter that we don’t get much recognition, and there’s no money in it, but there’s something inside us which guides us and keeps us in touch with other poets.
Are you a pessimist or an optimist?
If you read the poems you’d think I’m a diehard pessimist, but I think after you get married and have children, then one is sort of hopeful because of your own family. But politically I feel very pessimistic, especially with the present situation in this country... What I’ve treasured most in my life are my friendships with poets like Arvind (Krishna Mehrotra), Adil, Eunice (de Souza)… In that sense, poetry has been a stabilising force. I don’t agree with this thing about poets being difficult, cantankerous people, you know? I’ve never met a cantankerous poet.
Has having had two daughters changed you as a man?
I feel very privileged to be a father. I belong to that long-haired generation. I used to smoke a lot of dope. I’m also a reformed alcoholic, so I think when I look at them, especially the background I came from — I married outside the community, which was very difficult at the time, and I left Bombay, a city that was a part of me, and luckily I got a job in Goa… But I feel so blessed to have two daughters.
The interviewer’s latest book is a collection of poems, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods.
