Aesthetic Consciousness in R. K. Singh’s Poetry by Jindagi Kumari

 

                            Aesthetic Consciousness in R. K. Singh’s Poetry

                         Dr. Jindagi Kumari
                         Assistant Professor
                         English Language and Communication Skills
                         Maharaja Surajmal Institute of Technology
                         Janakpuri East, New Delhi, India

Abstract:

With sixteen collections of poems R.K. Singh’s contribution to
Indian English poetry is significant though not duly recognized. A
strong voice from Jharkhand, India, Singh assimilates local flavors
with universal outlook while experimenting with lyrical poetic
forms and Haiku. His brief but terse poems present human psyche
and conditions in an idiom that strikes a chord with the
contemporary life and thought process. Singh’s poems are
remarkable for reasons more than one. The paper attempts a
detailed analysis of the aesthetic value and poetic appeal in R. K.
Singh’s poetry.

Keywords: Aesthetics; poetry; R.K. Singh; imagery; form

Aesthetic1 consciousness may be understood as consciousness to
art in terms of effect or responses that it generates. In the context
of poetry, it constitutes the elements that contain the aesthetic
value 2 or beauty of poetic art.

Coleridge, in Biographia Literaria, chalks out four elements of
good poetry: musicality (rhythm and rhyme), imagery / words
modified by predominant passion, thoughts, and feelings. He also
appreciates “aloofness of the poet’s own feelings”; from those
which he at once paints and analyses…”3 Eliot also seems to
prescribe objectivity of attitude in a poet when he stresses on an
artist’s need to escape from emotion and personality.4

One of the landmark explanations concerning aesthetics of poetry
can be that of I. A. Richards, who, addressing the question of “true
places of the values of the experience (poetic)”5 casts aside the
study of imagery as they are “…the point at which two readings
are most likely to differ”.6 He feels that “in the reading of poetry
the thought due simply to the words, their sense it may be called
comes first….”7 In other words, Richards defines a poem as a
group of words that evokes a particular experience that does not
vary greatly when read by different sensitive readers. The
experience of the readers counts crucially on the sequential
arrangement of words. It is the meaning of the words that
determine the success of rhyming and rhythm.

The views concerning poetic art expressed above may be summed
up as indicating thoughts and emotions along with poetic language
implying beauty of poetry.

What is poetry?

R. K. Singh in a number of poems draws on the ideals of poetic
beauty. To Singh poetry is all inclusive like life; it harmonises
positive and negative, sweet and bitter, beautiful and ugly at the
same instant:

A poem is
like life

sound
and silence

movement
and stillness

fragment
and wholeness

Avibhiktam
Vibhakteshu

like Shiva
and Shakti

lotus
and mud

( Poem no. ‘1’, 1-14, Music Must Sound) 8

The lines seem to imply that art is not justified if not allowed to
feature the darker aspect of existence along with the brighter.
Following this poetics the poet brings to the fore every puny and
petty thing that occurs in day to day life. Poetry for Singh could be
inspired even from “failed ejaculation” and “cowardice” (Sexless
Solitude and Other Poems, p. 54).9 Perhaps in the realisation of the
darkness the poet sees embodied an intent craving for light. The
poet promotes a view of assimilation and harmony as reflective of
the true artistic spirit.

Further, in Singh poetry is presented through the metaphor of
woman. The concept of woman is the key to the aesthetics of R. K.
Singh. The poet says:

The best poetry
is a woman
concrete, personal, delightful
greater than all   (Poem no. ‘7’, 1-4, My Silence)

Rabindranath Tagore also takes woman and poetry as identical and
believes that a woman unlike man “has to be picturesque and
musical to make manifest what she truly is,—because, in her
position in the world, woman is more concrete and personal than
man. She is not to be judged merely by her usefulness, but by her
delightfulness.” 10

By implication, Singh advocates personal poetry, both in terms of
themes and treatment. It is for this reason, perhaps, that the poet
draws a lot on woman; her beauty and nudity, for an instance “An
undresses woman” is depicted in R. K. Singh as “live sensuous and
delicious” (Flight of Phoenix, p.71). Besides, the poet also
explores the intimate moments of nuptial relationship: “Your lush
lips / ripple fire” (Poem no.5, ll. 5-6, My Silence). The poet seems
to attain “delightfulness” for his verses by means of the projection
of the subjective experiences. However, the poet also presents
woman and sex as an antidote to the dark abyss of existential
realities which is as equally dominant aspect of his aesthetics. The
poet often reflects on the existence as monotonous, overshadowed
by failure, guilt, humiliation, loneliness, rejection and helplessness.
He highlights lack of harmony in life: “Sleeping in the same bed,
but / isn’t it disappointing we / haven’t seen the same dreams …?”
(‘Isn’t it Disappointing?’, ll.1-3, Some Recent Poems). Further in
the poem, ‘Erection can’t Create’ one comes across a similar sad
reflection on the decay of values; “where olive rested once / now
stinks with dried blood. A famine of love / menopausal silence: /
erection can’t create” (ll.2-6)

Directness and Brevity

One notes that Singh articulates his vision in a straightforward
manner. The style of the poet develops not only with his sharing of
subjective experiences but also with liberal employment of words
and images related to sex.

at the Ganges in Kartik
old gods leer at
their wet bare backs

in bleeding cold
‘aum’ is convenient
to soothe Vasanas

no more Aswapathys please
they’re hung up, racing in jet
to catch two white moons

(Poem no. ‘27’, ll. 7-15, Music Must Sound)

In the lines the poet exhibits the moral downfall of priests at the
banks of Ganges by pinpointing their amorous activity. Here, the
firsthand references to the incidents and places add to the
directness of the artistic voice. The frankness is reinforced through
the structure of the poem consisting of phrases. The phrasal
construction also provides the poem a sort of brevity:

Mute pavements
shelters meditators
in milky silence

passing beauties
denuded in water
skin shrinks (3-6)

and

face lotus
tongue sandal
manners sweet
heart scissors
I know him
seasoned crook

(Poem no ‘40’,ll.1-5, Flight of Phoenix)

The style is an outcome of the poet’s preoccupation with haiku. In
the example one also notices other stylistic features, such as lack of
punctuation and title. This style of Singh’s seems to be akin to the
radical break in America from the1890s where writers and artists
sought to express the “immediately contemporary.”11 R. K. Singh
seems aware of the new technical problems in art and makes an
advance to create a body of verse which is more rapid, precise,
economical and bold than that of the poet of the preceding decades.

Beguiling simplicity of Words

 
Singh’s verses display words related to diverse fields such as
Nature, journalism, erotica, science and technology, diseases and
medicine, and literature and scripture. The poet also deploys a few
foreign phrases such as “deo volente” (God being willing) (Music
Must Sound, p. 122), “sotto voce” (in a low voice) (Some Recent
Poems, p. 42).

Also, Singh’s poems introduce a number of indigenous (Sanskrit
and Hindi) expressions such as “Avibhiktam-Vibhakteshu” (Music
Must Sound, p. 100), Puja pandals (p.76) “Vasanas”, “sadhana”
(p.110) “gurus” (p.124), “chandan” , “geru” (p.122) , “Shivalay” ,
“sutra” (Some Recent Poems, p. 8), , “sanskar” (Memories
Unmemoried, p. 91), “monsoony mist” (My Silence, p. 144),
“Dhoopam” (p.164); and colloquial Hindi such as; “alao” (p.153),
“nullah” (Memories Unmemoried, p. 93) etc. All these words are
used symbolically in the verses and are adequately suggestive
within the context. An example is the poem ‘Bushes, Weeds and
Flowers’ (Some Recent Poems) where liturgical terms “covenant
and prophets” are used symbolically:

let’s clean the sky of tales
of covenants and prophets
and be at peace with earth’s
bushes and weeds and flowers. (ll.7-10)

Here, words “covenant” and “prophets” are symbolic of the
religious authorities who are assigned great task to explain
religion, spirituality and meaning of life. The speaker, however,
does not trust the “tales” of such prophets. He rather advocates
being “at peace with” the common masses represented through the
Botanical registers “bushes, weeds, and flowers”. In the lines the
words transcend their usual context and are worked out in a novel
context. This reflects the artist’s flair for freedom and
experimentation. In Singh “…common words lose their pedestrian
character, their ordinariness, and gain a new face.” 12
Further, the poet avoids multi-syllabic words. The poet does not
subscribe to verbosity and “romantic eloquence.” Here, one finds
Singh as a distinguished artist using “simple words” 13 which are
far from simple in their effect; the word the poet chooses are
“sharp”, “incisive”14 and terse in nature. The choice of such words
lends uniqueness to the tone marked by “electrifying rapidity”.
R. K. Singh seems more radical in his use of words. This proves
true as one examines the range of the erotic vocabulary in Singh.

The poet goes near the fringes of porn poetry in his induction of
words such as “orgasm” (Above the Earth’s Green, p. 25 )15
“ejection”, “ejaculation” (Sexless Solitude and Other Poems, p.
54), “copulation” (p.18), “”consummation” (p.22), “climax”,
“busts” (Memories Unmemoried, p. 87), “…upstanding nipples /
under transparent blouse” (Poem no. 23, ll. 7-8) “dick” (p. 2),
“fuck” (Flight of Phoenix, p. 61), “erection”(Some Recent Poems,
p.27) in his poetry. Such uses not only reflect the poet’s
excessively free spirit and poetic audacity but also decide the
overall tone of his poetry making it more candid and direct. The
poet also uses slang thus giving a casual and conversational
appearance to his poetic argument. Also the style reflects the
poet’s view of art that should not conform to any restriction. For
art “sky is the limit”. This élan for sex words has been severely
criticised but these words shock with their adequacy in the context
they have been used since their employment is symbolic and not
literal.

The sex vocabulary used in the verses produce two types of effect.
A group of them consisting of the parts of woman’s body is used to
describe the feminine beauty and evokes eroticism.

That autumn tree
from this window
looks like a young woman
naked
exciting birds
to come
kiss and play

(Poem no. ‘2’, ll. 1-7, My Silence)

The image of tree as a “naked” “young woman” creates sensual
appeal. However, there is another group of words which may
appear cruder and vulgar: “Scratching between his legs” (Flight of
Phoenix, p. 68): and “he pressed her skin.” Still cruder is the
following snippet:

A woman should complement
…wanting love
…with sweetness
of the bone in mouth or
frenzied riding high or
grinding pubic regions

(Poem no.‘48’, ll. 1-6 , Flight of Phoenix )

The speaker here shares his idea with kitschy sex expressions. His
vulgar suggestions do not appear effective even if seen as an
outcome of anger and grudge against repressive social structure.
Also the instance is not alone of its kind. One finds a number of
such uses: “Like a woman’s mind / resides between her thighs…/
man’s love and hatred / concentrate on the crevice / though he
watches face” (Poem no. ‘56’, ll. 1-6); “I smell my boneless /
semen under the pillow / weaving legends…” (Poem no. ‘59’, ll. 1-
3) and “she unzips her skirt / like the silkworm undoing / its yellow
cocoon” (Poem no.‘61’, ll. 4-6). The poets presentation of the
unspectacular sexual encounters often appear undesirable.
However, the use of the sex words and expressions by the poet
adds a new dimension to the frankness in Indian English Poetry.

Erotic Imagery

 
One of the marked features of Singh’s aesthetic is his use of erotic
imagery. The poet uses variety of sex images and constructs them
in many ways. Firstly, in many poems the poet perceives woman’s
body in terms of nature images. Examples are “forest of her body”
(My Silence, p.144), “steeps of her breast”, “body’s delta” (Above
the Earth’s Green, p. 52) and “the moon” etc. Woman’s body,
chief source of eroticism in Singh is recurrently projected with the
images of “island” (My Silence, p. 144), “ocean” and “sea” (Above
the Earth’s Green, p. 24) The image “two white moons” (Music
Must Sound, p. 110) is connotative of a woman’s bosom. Further,
the poet captures men “leer (ing)”, “wet bare backs” of women;
“An undressed woman” (Flight of Phoenix, p.70) is “live sensuous
delicious”. Singh also uses animal imagery as sex symbols; image
of “flying horse” (p.103) for example is used to convey a sexually
active persona. At another place the image “rhino horns” (Above
the Earth’s Green, p.19) is employed with a similar meaning.
Apart from these all, the poet also draws directly on bodily and
sexual images such as “ kisses” (Above the Earth’s Green, p. 94)
“voluptuous sqeezes”, “nipples” (p. 30), “navel love”
(p.27),”inside your breast space”, “your flame” “your altar”, “wet
lingerie”, “between thighs” (Sexless Solitude and Other Poems, p.
18) , “legs slide” (Some Recent Poems, p. 20), “eyes and thighs”
(p.33), “lips” and others. In some of the poems some objects and
structures such as “door” and “walls” (Music Must Sound, p.110),
“the centre” (p.19), “sitar” (p.106), “cigarette” are also used as sex
symbol.

Other Images and Symbols

 
R. K. Singh’s poems abound in Nature and cosmic symbolism such
as “tree”, “flower” , “sun” (Some Recent Poems , p.2), “moon”
(p.20), “earth and sky” , “light and darkness” (p.10), “day and
night” (p.29), “hill” (Music Must Sound, p.116), “road” (Music
Must Sound, p. 116), “sea” (p.119), “ocean” (My Silence, p. 159).
The image of “hill”, for example, appears recurrently in poem no.
‘21’, ‘44’ and ‘47’ of Music Must Sound. In poem no. ‘44’ it
symbolises a link between physical and spiritual: “Across the
brown woods / I climb the naked hills / where tempests can’t reach
/ nor waves rise to collapse” (ll.1-4). In poem no. ‘47’, however,
the poet evokes the scenic beauty of a hill: “The sun sheds its
radiance / over the hills…” (ll. 1-2)

The poet uses symbols such as “death” (Flight of Phoenix, p. 78),
“ashes” (p.94), “shadows”, “dust” (Music Must Sound, p.105) and
“fog” (My Silence, p.153) suggesting decay. Besides, in a number
of poems one finds uses of animal symbolism such as “dragon”
(My Silence, p.159), “cow” (p.151), “monkey”, “snake”, “pig”,
“dogs” (pp.148,150,152), “jackal”(Music Must Sound, p.129),
“ass”, “rat” (Memories Unmemoried, p. 94), “butterfly” (Flight of
Phoenix, p.62) and others. Some words having common everyday
uses are also attributed with symbolic significance with the
recurrent employment; examples are “cup” (Some Recent Poems,
p.13), “politics”, “sex” (Sexless Solitude and Other Poems, p.16),
“road”, “child”, and “son” (My Silence, p.165). The “cup”, for
example, signifies a pastime or a hobby in the poem ‘My New
Cup’ (Some Recent Poem) whereas it symbolises life; warmth,
love, friendship and humanity in ‘Plant New Peonies”. The symbol
of “rat” in poem no. ‘37’ of Memories Unmemoried, is used for
politicians who “design new room / to negotiate disgrace” (ll.3-4).
Combined with the imagistic and symbolic quality of the words is
the use of figures such as personification. Following verse is an apt
example where all the inanimate natural objects and features have
been invested with life:

The morning’s withered flesh
and swollen skin of the day
by bloody nullah in smoke
tears shade tomorrow
like today, everyday they cry

(Poem no. ‘35’, ll.1-5, Memories Unmemoried)

The imagery in these lines has surrealistic quality as it objectifies a
state of mind reflective of utter frustration and helplessness.

Musicality

 
In Singh’s poetry words constitute the basic aesthetic device. They
startle with their sound and meaning, order and novelty. The
musical effect in his verses is largely created due to alliterative
device which also accounts for occasional finding of internal
rhythm in his verses. An instance may be the following verse:

Love leads to beauty
and vision with perfection
pillar of dust or
fleeting shadow can
turn into light revelling
pure songs wrought out of
the clay blending joys

( Poem no. ‘7’, ll. 1-7, Flight of Phoenix)

Here, one finds that the expressions have been weaved skillfully
with an ear to the repetitive sounds. In the first line the sound /l/ is
repeated in words “love” and “leads”; while in the next line
repetition of /n/ sounds occurs. Also, /p/ sound is repeated in words
“perfection” and “pillar”; /l/ sound recurs in “light” and “reveling”;
/t/ sound is repeated in line five in words “turn”, “light”,
“wrought” and “out”. One notes that apart from consonant sounds
vowel sounds are also used for musical effect: “under cloud-cover,
rising / sliding ritually in bed swallow / humiliations, arrogance
and ridicule / to escape whores in the street” (‘The Next Day’s
Sun’, ll. 13-16, Some Recent Poems). The repetition of sound helps
the poet to create internal rhyme as in “rising” “sliding”. However,
there are no end rhymes.

Mythical Allusions

 
Another pronounced feature of Singh’s verse is mythical allusions
with which the poet studs his verses. These mythical allusions are
variously drawn from the Bible; “Bashan” (Music Must Sound, p.
120), “mai? mai?” (p.121), “Eloi! Eloi!” (p.128) “Eden” (p.116),
“Sinai” (p.121) and other sources and basically have metaphoric
function. These are often hard to decode and obfuscate the
meaning of the verses.

Enjambment / Word order

 
Singh at times appeals with arrangement of words in his verses. An
example is “survive surprises” in the poem ‘Survival’ (Some
Recent Poems, p. 50). Here the inverted order of the words
foregrounds the meaning and highlight the element of surprise.
Singh’s aptitude to experimentation in word order is further seen
through the feature of enjambment whereby a single word in
association with preceding and succeeding lines create two
different meanings; an instance is the word “fruit” in the second
line and “yellow sun” in the third line of the verse.

Moonlight lingers
on mango boughs like the fruit
sweet yellow sun
in my courtyard
cool shade travels with thin cloud
I see love dance

(‘My New Cup’, ll. 1-6, Some Recent Poems)

Untitled Verses

Notwithstanding, the poet avoids giving titles to his verses and
punctuation in collections Some Recent Poems and Sexless Solitude
and Other Poems. Their being untitled seems to give an impression
of the verses as sequences of one long poem spreading to the entire
book. Also the poet believes that even if “titles tell too much” they
limit the meaning and lessen the effect of a poem, whereas the
poet’s intention is to express “poetry that is beyond the sky”.
Singh, in this respect, reflects quite unconventional an attitude. He
tries to evolve his own style as a way to transcend limitations.16
Nevertheless, regarding the poems without titles, I. K. Sharma, an
Indian English poet and critic, says, “to a common reader title is a
big help that makes a poem accessible.” 17 D.S. Maini, another,
noted Indian English poet, expresses doubt to such
experimentations: “I’m not sure if such a view can really be
sustained for long unless perhaps one has the genius of an Emily
Dickinson, as also the compulsions of her craft.”18 Probably, the
poet’s giving titles to the verses of his recent poetic volumes seems
an outcome to such critical responses.

Experimental Punctuation

The poet avails poetic freedom and goes beyond the conventional
norms for an intentional emission of punctuation as in the lines:
“Is it the fear / of dying penting up, don’t know / can’t resist.”
(‘Survival’, ll. 1-3, Some Recent Poems) In the lines lack of
comma lends a kind of rapidity to the verse that reflects the
person’s agitation and inability. Such experimentation has its own
effect and is not used merely to show linguistic expertise.
However, the propensity does not succeed always. Singh’s poetics
is perhaps rightly deemed as “exciting but precarious” and some
critics feel that in most of his poems “language qua language is
apotheosised (…) than by some powerful sustaining thought.” 19
The poet’s experimentation and non conformity in stylistic context
is an illustration of his intent to attain balance in art and also
suggests his quest for balance in life.

Haiku-like Form

 
R.K. Singh’s verses lack a uniform pattern of rhythm or rhyme.
Nevertheless, in some poems where the poet uses haiku (the
Japanese form of verse) as stanza unit, syllabic rhythm can be
observed. The formal aspect of R.K. Singh’s verses, at large, is
guided by his practice of haiku. The poet does not always conform
to the traditional pattern of haiku (5-7-5 syllables) and tanka (5-7-
5-7-7 syllables). He, instead, uses three line stanza patterns that
appear Haiku like. In addition, he employs two lines, four lines,
and five lines stanza pattern but they occur less often. Haiku in
different beats 4-6-4, 5-7-5 and in free form are composed by the
poet in stanza form in the longer poem and individually in Haiku
collections. An example of 4-6-4 syllabic arrangements is the
following poem:

they close their eyes
or shut them with rupees
matters little

but I worry
when with sight in their hands
they free shadows

(‘They Close their Eyes’, ll.1-4, Some Recent Poems)

Similarly example of short lyric in tanka form is as follows:

I clasp your hands
and feel the blood
running savagely
through your arteries
in tulip silence

(Poem no. ‘4’, ll.1-5, My Silence)

The poet in his effort to follow stanza and syllabic pattern seems to
strive for “symmetry”. But in spite of his constant effort the poet
fails to maintain uniformity and reflects lack of consistency at each
level of his style. Every feature of style that he develops or adopts
remains a perpetual subject of variation. In this regard one seems
to agree with I. H. Rizvi’s observation: “…Singh believes in
variety, variation and originality.”20

Self-directed Irony

Irony is instrumental to the overall effect of Singh’s poetry. The
element is often self directed and used to whiplash hypocrisy and
deflate ego.21

I seek my balance in
yoga-nidra in the closed
room think his thoughts and lies
we weave to ensnare spirit
that pricks the balloon we pump
to rise above the earth’s green:

(Poem no. ‘41’, ll. 4-9, Above the Earth’s Green)

In the poem one finds irony cutting through the dual notion of
spirituality. Irony in Singh’s verses is also directed against

corruption. In the following verse irony is evoked by means of
animal imagery to expose corrupt politicians:

sucking the monkey with his antics
of love and justice he plays
the lamb, the lion, the pig, and the ape
and prove his virility in the politics
of monkey, cow, and snake

(Poem no. ‘36’, ll. 9-13, My Silence)

This depiction of inappropriate and incongruous behaviour gives
vent to irony besides producing humour. However, the notion that
the politicians treat “love and justice” as “antics” indicates the
persona’s anger against them. Irony here seems to be getting bitter.
Irony in Singh’s verses is less humorous and more sarcastic. A
similar ironical situation occurs in poem no. ‘37’ where the poet
lashes at the politicians:

It’s outrageous
with headless heads
and paper tigers
roaring from the top

(Poem no. ‘85’, ll. 1-4, Music Must Sound)

In such poems irony seems to become a tool to express displeasure
and frustration and nears sarcasm.

To sum up, in R. K. Singh one finds a successful manifestation of
an individual poetic ideology and a distinct style that is bold and
assimilative. The frank use of sexual expressions, use of
indigenous terms, words from the various field of life combined
with bleak Nature imagery are the chief aesthetic features of his
poems. Brevity of expression is largely achieved due to the
selection of perfect imagery and pithy expressions accompanying
terseness. Often arranged in stanzas of varying lines the poems
look presentable on the pages, though they rarely reflect any
rhythmic or rhyming uniformity. Musicality is evoked by proper
arrangement of words alliterating with each other.

Despite all the poetic devices employed the overall poetic effect is
not so inspiring. The boisterous eroticism, bitter realism, and
pessimism seem to aggravate the existential pain of the reader. The
speakers in Singh’s poems express their frustration and rage
against impending anarchy and corruption. The tool employed to
present the angst often evoke repulsion: “it puts me off to smell /
sweat oozing from the armpits / the thighs moist with urine”
(‘Erotics of Bygones’, ll. 4-6, Sexless Solitude and Other Poems).

The ugliness and disgust of one’s experiences are all acceptable as
an expression of one’s grudge and frustration with life but to the
reader, who himself is a victim of life, it proves too much. Though
the unmistakable effect of the poet in using phrases can never be
underestimated; expressions like “funeral dreams”, “shadows
masturbate” (Sexless Solitude and Other Poems, p. 24), “plateaus
of nightmare” (p. 26), “corroding consciousness”, (p. 42),
“crippled impulses” (p.36) “spray of years”, (p. 78) “unzipped
night” (p.97) are samples of Shingh’s creative and effective use of
language. One feels that R. K. Singh’s poetry can at best be judged
with an awareness of existential agony of an artist. Also the
abundance of subjective tendencies indicates that aesthetic impact
is more directed to the artist than to his readers. However, the
poems dealing with social and political criticism are more effective
and promise not less than a new perspective to life.

                                                    References

 
1. Lyas, Colin. Aesthetics. London: Routledge, 2003.4. Print.
2. “Aesthetics.” The New Encyclopedia Britannica.
Macropedia.Vol.1. Chicago: William Benton Publisher,
1973.149. Print.
3. Coleridge, S.T. Biographia Literaria. Vol. II. Ed. J.
Shawcross. London: Oxford Universsity Press,
1907.16.Print
4. Cullinane, Steven H. “Poetry’s Bones: “The Form, the
Pattern” of Four Quartets.” Web.28 Dec.2009.
<http://finitegeometry.org/sc/ph/poetrysbones.html>.
5. Richards, I. A. Principles of Literary Criticism. London:
Routledge Classics, 2001.113. Print.
6. Ibid. 112.
7. Ibid. 117.
8. Singh, R.K. My Silence and Other Selected Poems.
Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 1994. Print.
9. Sexless Solitude and Other Poems .Bareilly: Prakash Book
Depot, 2009. Print.
10. Devy, 144.
11. Perkins, David. A History of Modern Poetry: Modernism
and After. New Delhi: ABS Publishers and Distributors,
2006. 34. Print.
12. Sharma, I. K. Ed. Introduction. New Indian English Poetry.
Ibid. 8.
13. Prem, P. C. K. “R. K. Singh: A Poet of Nature, Beauty and
Woman.”Ibid. 74.
14. Ibid. 61.
15. Singh, R. K. Above the Earth’s Green. Calcutta: Writer’s
Workshop, 1997.Print.
16. Sinha, R. N. “In the Landscape of the Self: R. K. Singh’s
‘Flight of Phoenix’” New Indian English Poetry: An
Alternative Voice. Ibid. 332. 

17. Ibid.

18. Maini, D. S. “R. K. Singh: Search for a Rhetoric Balance.” Ibid. 28.
19. Ibid. 29.
20. Rizvi, I. H. “Some Comments on ‘Peddling Dream.’” 327-28.
21. (Paraphrased) Sharma, I. K. “Music Must Sound: An ‘Epic
with Scratchy Jargon.’” Ibid.128.

 

Published on 
Creative Flight: An International Half-Yearly Open Access Peer-Reviewed E-Journal in English
(ISSN 2582-6158), Vol. 3, No. 1 (April, 2022) Page 91-110