Taken in May of 2017 at Amboseli N.P.
DAILY PHOTO: Small[-ish] Mammals of the Savanna
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Author Archives: B Gourley
POEM: Marsh Elephants
fragile herd,
living in the space between
Kilimanjaro’s broad shoulders
[too broad to see without a panning view]
on an oasis of glacial melt
runoff that grows a plume of vivid green
amid the red-brown savannah lands
where dust devils daily form
below the equatorial belt
and when the runoff runs out
there’ll be no time to run
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DAILY PHOTO: Temple of the Masks
Taken at Tikal around 2010.
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The End is Near Haiku
possibility
keeps one trudging, breathless,
to the top
ridge tree
now seems much bigger,
but no nearer
looking out
from a hilltop, the view —
and I — changed
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DAILY PHOTO: Inside the Caves of Ellora
POEM: I Surrender
i’m free —
because i know not of what i need to be freed.
Is it a god?
Is it a program?
Is it meaninglessness?
Is it a make-believe conception of self?
Order?
Chaos?
Alien overlords?
i don’t know what game i’m playing,
and thus feel no compunction to play it well.
So, i surrender to the god of my own ignorance,
making mystery my higher power.
i searched the earth for a source of perfect truth, and found none.
No perfect scripture.
No perfect science.
No perfection in personal experience.
No perfect teacher.
But i’ve known bliss in the act of floundering through this dance of darkness,
and so,
i’ve got no complaints.
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DAILY PHOTO: Shri Vithal Rakhumai Mandir
Taken in October of 2016 in Goa
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BOOK REVIEW: Bangalore: A Graphic Novel by Jai Undurti, et. al.
Bangalore: A Graphic Novel: Every City is a Story by Jai Undurti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book collects nine stories communicated via comic strip artwork. As the title suggests, the principle theme is Bangalore. Not much else unifies the nine works. That’s not a complaint or criticism. The book works fine, but the artistic and writing styles do vary radically. The stories include historical pieces, science fiction, crime fiction, and non-fiction – delivered in various tones from dark and gritty to light and playful. [I suspect it is only subtitled “A Graphic Novel” because that’s the only existing term that’s vaguely accurate. While it’s sometimes the case that a collection of stories with little connective tissue is called a novel – this one has no connective tissue beyond Bangalore-ness (no common characters or overlapping events.) But “Illustrated Stories” would be even more confusing to readers because it would sound like a children’s book (which this definitely isn’t) and it wouldn’t convey that the panel graphic style of comic books is employed.]
This isn’t to say that there aren’t cross-cutting ideas. I said Bangalore was the book’s theme, and I meant that. It’s not just the setting for these stories. As such, one sees a few recurring ideas that are central to Bangalore’s unique nature. Those who know anything about Bangalore probably know it as “India’s Silicone Valley.” So, it’s not unexpected that one recurring concept is technology — as well as technology gone awry. If one knows two things about Bangalore, the second is probably that its growth rate has been phenomenal. When India was newly independent, Bangalore was a fraction of the size of Chennai (Madras), and now – at an estimated 12 million people – its India’s third largest city, having edged out Kolkata (Calcutta) for that position. This has led to a lot of concern about urban decay, particularly among those who knew it as “the garden city” back when it was a popular retirement destination. The idea of nostalgia murdered by rampant growth, therefore, plays heavily into the collection.
I’ll briefly mention each of the pieces. Sorry, I know nothing about art, and therefore am unable to comment on the various styles. I just know they cover quite a gamut from monochrome to dark and desolate to bright and cheerful.
-Bangaloids: This is a piece of dark humor that plays with the aforementioned idea of technology gone awry.
-The Incredible Story of Gunboat Jack: This story explores issues of home and how it changes for one from youth to middle age. The tale shows a boxer in his prime juxtaposed with his past-prime self in a city that has grown away from him as he aged.
-No More Coffee: This is a simple story of a broken heart, but what’s cool is how it contrasts futuristic tech with a setting of India Coffee House. (For those unfamiliar ICH it’s one café among a chain owned by the Coffee Board of India that is tasty, simple, inexpensive, and like walking several decades into the past.)
-81, Richmond Street: This tells the tale of a crime famous in the annals of Bangalore.
-The Missing ATM: This comedic story features an ATM guard who has an ATM stolen out from under him while his sits on the midnight shift. While it’s humorous, it also deals with issues of class and moral dilemmas. [This was probably my favorite.]
-11th Main 9th Cross: This spare piece explores the issue of urban decay.
-Mileage: This is dark story features a man speeding home who has an accident, and is forever changed in an unexpected way.
-Beneath: This story is different in that it ends with Bangalore, but doesn’t begin so.
-My Story: This is a nostalgia piece by someone who was born and raised in Bangalore, who went away, and who comes back occasionally to find an everchanging city.
I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it – particularly for anyone with any experience with Bangalore.
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DAILY PHOTO: Kotmale Oya at Two Times of Day
BOOK REVIEW: In the Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson
In the Dark, Soft Earth by Frank Watson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Watson’s collection seizes one’s senses. Much of the poetry takes an imagist approach, using free verse poems with spare language to generate vivid, concrete images in the mind. That said, there are a number of poetic styles that appear throughout, including: haiku, tanka, sonnets (in Book X), and various lyrical variations. While natural imagery features prominently, there’s also surrealist, ethereal visuals in play as well.
The poems are arranged into ten sections, and while each book has an overarching theme there are themes that seem to cut across books. The titular notion of something buried is one of these. Another such concept is the journey.
The second section generates an expansive feeling of space as well as time. Book III intrigued me as it focused on organization, assembly, and the creation of something out of pieces and parts – which created a unique feel. Books IV and V shifted focus to hearing rather than seeing, though it largely did so by invoking the action of music creation and dance.
The book presents paintings from the fifteenth century through to the present-day throughout the book. Many of these artworks begin various sections of the collection and give one a flash of insight into the theme that will play out through that section. However, there are numerous poems that are presented as homages to paintings – notably, the whole of book VIII is poems based on tarot card imagery and subject matter.
While the majority of the paintings referenced have Western origins, one also sees Eastern influences at various points in the collection – both in the poems and in some of the paintings. Asian influences are most explicitly experienced in Book IX, which features several poems of Chinese or Japanese inspiration. The last section presents a few sonnets amid free verse poems.
I enjoyed this collection and would highly recommend it for poetry readers or those who love the visual arts, particularly those curious to see how a poet creates another dimension of experience in the realm of visceral sensation.
