Literary Essays

Publication Details:

Written: 2011- 13 & 2017-19

First Published: 25 March 2020

E-Book Published: 25 March 2020

Form of Release:

E-Book/Paperback

Date of Release:

25 March 2020

Publishers:

Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books,

Trivandrum- 695562.

Text Copyright©: P. S. Remesh Chandran (Author),

Padmalayalam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post,

Trivandrum- 695562,

Kerala State, South India.

Cover:

Image By: J Plenio. Graphics: Adobe SP.

Article Images Courtesy: Pixabay.

Books by the author:

Are Our Women Safe In Our Hospitals?

Delights Of Poetry

Did A Data Mining Giant Take Over India?

Doctors Politicians Bureaucrats People And Private Practice

E-Health Implications And Medical Data Theft

Essays Reintroduced

Is Reformation Over For Hinduism?

Is There Patience And Room For One More Reactor?

Kahlil Gibran’s Tears And Laughter Recast In The True Poetic Form

Literary Essays

Political Comments On India in 5 Parts

Political Comments On Kerala in 2 Parts

Story Quill

Student Essays Poetry in 3 Volumes

Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book

The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazals

WHO IMF IBRD And ADB Money To India Health Finances Human Rights Violations And Corruption

Will Dog Lovers Kill The World?

Table of Contents

Publication Details

Books by the author

Table of Contents

LITERARY ESSAYS

INTRODUCTION

01. Learning to write poems

02. Think twice before publishing with free article directories

03. How advertisements help pay online writers?

04. Will online writing bring enough to live?

05. The life and works of Robert Frost

06. The life and works of Sarojini Naidu

07. B’ware of w-beginning writers’ publishing platforms?

08. How much of Englisch is English?

09. What if they begin to burn all books?

10. Was Thomas Hardy a poet or a novelist really?

11. Doesn’t poetry need to follow rules?

12. Is poetry written or revealed?

13. Why are highly intelligent people so rare to find?

14. Good conventional book readers like their books to be around 300-400 pages long, light, and in standard size

15. Writers needn’t leave social media groups for any reason: the outside world is crueler

16. The intuitive mind is part of the material universe and needn’t question but only believe

17. The First World War first hesitated but then gave birth to powerful literature

18. Why fine lexicographers do not become fine writers except Dr. Johnson?

19. Kahlil Gibran: Did craft lead to mystery or mystery lead to craft?

20. Why don’t they teach English root classes for 2 years instead of teaching English for 15 years?

About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran

LITERARY ESSAYS

P. S. REMESH CHANDRAN

SAHYADRI BOOKS TRIVANDRUM

INTRODUCTION

These articles were written during the years 2011- 13 & 2017-19. As original works they are hoped to be of use to students, teachers and researchers in the English language and literature as well as to the general public.

Necessary corrections and additions have been done before publishing these articles as a book. They were first published online one by one since 2011 on various publishing platforms. The objective behind their publishing online with images was simply to make them available to readers for free before being published as a book. This is the first time they are compiled as a book. In this collection these images are excluded for want of space. Those who want to read these articles with images as web pages can go to my blog Sahyadri Books Trivandrum Online and find them all under the List of Literary Articles page. They are invited.

This volume includes original literary articles, essays and notes. Other volumes in THE GOOG ENGLISH BOOK SERIES will include articles on poetry and reintroduced essays, short stories, novels and plays. Hope the most noted subjects of interest have been included in this collection, and they may be useful to those students, teachers, researchers and general readers who come across this book.

Sincerely Yours,

P. S. Remesh Chandran,

Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post,

Trivandrum-695562, Kerala, South India.

25 March 2020.

01. Learning to write poems

Poems are made of human thoughts. They are the spontaneous, natural outflow of emotions evolving from close and objective observations of the things and circumstances around us. Since human mind carries a bit of cosmic world inborn in it, it cannot prevent itself from rising to elations at the revelation of truth at moments of discovery. How to create and write poems has been an eternal question, the answers to which occupy a considerable portion and major status in philosophic literature. 

Where did all the poems voiced into the jungle, mountain, sea shore, wind and running stream go? 

As soon as dialect and alphabet were invented, the first poem was written. Writing poems was one of the earliest engagements of the human mind, second only to painting. Since the earliest poems were written on leaves and tree barks, they unfortunately did not survive. At least worms went through them and avian beauties sat on them. Those which were fortunate enough to be written on papyrus rolls, cave walls and rock faces survived, constantly reminding us of the naturality and delicateness from which our literature has fallen. And those which were simply voiced into the jungle, mountain, sea shore, wind and running stream never came back, but were taken to the higher realms of Ether.

Children three to five are born singers and song-makers, gifted by Nature and the Universe. 

One who sings songs can easily learn to write poems. It helps mastering the technique of arranging sounds as words in a poem. Singing as many songs as one can will create an appetite, voraciousness and lust for creating more songs our own way. It is true that if we observe children at their ages from three years to five, they can be found to be making up their own songs and singing them to themselves melodiously. All of us have done it at that age. That is a gift from Nature and the Universe to those who are come new to this world. We will wonder whether singing would be the main pastime in the Creator's land. As we become conscious of ourselves and more and more haughty and capricious in the course of our lives, this godly faculty fades away, leaving us alone in the middle of a desert of selfishness.

How does the Goddess of all Learning, Knowledge, Poetry and Music sit on a Lotus Flower that does not submerge? 

Poetry is a benediction of the Muses. To make it possible, the writer should be simple in mind and consider him as a nonentity. In the Hindu philosophy, the goddess of learning and music, Saraswathi Devi, is seen sitting on a lotus flower in the water, holding the musical instrument Veena. A frequently asked question is, in spite of the weight of her learning, why does not the lotus submerge. Philosophy explains that She is simple, and so her learning has not at all any weight. Therefore the first step to learn to write poems is to shed all pride, haughtiness and capriciousness from our person, and to sing as many songs as possible. Whoever sings will feel the breath of God on his back. It is said that He is standing just behind the persons who are singing. That is why they are singing.

Reattain the lost innocence, allow children to sleep in your rooms and see their sleeping night face. It is once in a life time. 

The next prerequisite to learn to write poems is to reattain the once-lost innocence. Remember that tiny little infant making songs for herself and singing all by herself. Without offending anyone, it may here be said that such tender and ardent scenes from human life can be observed and modelled upon only in communities where children are slept with parents in their room instead of in a separate baby room, and the infants are looked after by their own mothers and not by ayahs, nurses or caretakers. Anyway, imitating those infants in instant song- making is a giant step towards learning to create poetry.

A tiny stone can close the origin of a mighty stream, and the removal of one can cause the bursting out of an eternal stream.

Thus when the ground is set, one can begin to read as many poems as one can from the world literature. Reading the epics and classics in literature has created more poets than all the Universities and classrooms in this world combined have done. Reading of epics and classics gets us acquainted with whatever a writer of poems needs to know. Once these ground preparations are completed, one cannot help writing poems. It will come spontaneously, bursting out from the depth of the childhood innocence that is in every man. Just as a tiny stone can come rolling down and close the mouth of a stream, the removal also of a tiny stone can cause the outburst and flow of an eternal stream. Thus it is a pleasure learning to write poems. And once it is learnt, it is a source of delight to the entire world.

As a well-versed poet, you would be more knowing about the presence of Saraswathi Devi on your back while writing poems. Sometimes she reveals her own poems through us and seems to write for us. She passes through us as a head to hand spark. Otherwise we would not have written many of our poems, at least in my case. 

Written: 10 July 2011

First published: 10 July 2011

Link with images: https://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/2012/05/028-learning-to-write-poems-essay-by.html

02. Think twice before publishing with free article directories

Online publishing platforms are a great solace not only to those who seek up-to-date and current knowledge, but for those who wish to publish articles without complications also. Websites like Wikinut serve this purpose fine. One can also publish articles in free article directories like Go Articles and E Zine which would surely bring traffic to one's website. But once a sensible writer steps into this alien field, he would soon realize that he has actually stepped into a treacherous bog. 

A flood of inferior links comes as a deluge to search results, obscuring all your good links.

It is the wish of every writer who owns a blog or site to drive more traffic to his or her blog and site. Publishing articles in the articles data bases Go Articles and E Zine is the most advised way for attracting traffic into a site. The idea is, since these are reputed sites and by publishing in them your name becomes noted, clicks leading to your site will correspondingly increase and this increase of activity in your site will eventually lead to your site’s ranking going higher up with search engines. These data bases offer back links to at least four or five of your sites. You certainly will get more traffic to your site. But, no sooner you begin publishing your articles with these data bases than your digital world will become cramped and confused with hundreds of links leading to inferior sites, obscuring all good links which you have cherished for long. Therefore think twice, before publishing with them. 

If you are not interested in making money from your website, never publish in these free article data bases.

These sites are free article data bases, accessible to anyone. By publishing in them, you practically make your articles go public domain, which means anyone can use it anyway. Thousands of disciplined and legitimate readers use these data bases daily for gathering information on a wide variety of subjects. Students, teachers, writers, researchers, publishers, advertisers, all go there to find suitable articles, and they do find these data bases immensely helpful. It is true, this kind of