Contemporary Literary Review India | Print ISSN 2250-3366 | Online ISSN 2394-6075 | Impact Factor 8.1458 | Vol. 8, No. 1: CLRI February 2021
The Poems of Jen Walls: An Interpretation
Dr. Katta Rajamouly is a Professor and Head, Department of English (S.H), Ganapathy Engineering College, Warangal.
Abstract
In this paper the author explores the poems of Jen Walls. Jen is an international poet, author, and literary reviewer. She has got several poems and books published. Her body of works appears globally in various renowned international literary publications including Contemporary Vibes, PoetCrit, Bhakti Blossoms, Contemporary Literary Review India, Core Realm of Cosmic Peace & Harmony, and The Year of the Poet. Jen Walls was awarded the 2016 Distinguished Poet Award from Writers International Network (WIN-Canada). She currently resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.
Keywords
Jen Walls’ poetry, Jen’s themes, poetic merits of Jen, Natural symbols for effect.
"Jen Walls as a Love Poet par Excellence" With reference to her poems: "Be Great Love Today" and "In the Love Breaths"
All pay a due and heed to the concept of love, the deepest emotion of the human race when it lacks in human relations and cordial concerns. A poet who has an observant eye and a sensitive heart wishes for the welfare of the entire human race. The poet with special features and kind gestures of love marks a clear-cut difference from other poets.
There are various types of poets to deal with the varied aspects of love. Some poets love art, sculpture, nature, literature, science and so on as per their taste, flair and passion. Some poets like Shakespeare, Browning and Donne depict love for love-partners.
Shakespeare deals with love in his sonnets in a distinct way. He deals with love in terms of eternity. Donne and Browning deal with love for lovers. They depict physical and spiritual aspects of love of individuals for their partners with the sense of optimism.
Some poets like Walt Whitman love their nations. Whitman's love is for his nation. He gives voice to his nation's ideals and aspirations in respect of individuality and equality in "Leaves of Grass".
The poets, who evince love for the human race, are the poets indeed. They love and aim at the welfare of the race. They firmly believe in the fact that love achieves peace, progress and all that are essential for the race. There is a poet, who is none other than Jen Walls is a poet of love and humanity. She loves the human race and wishes its welfare by filling every heart with love, 'great love today'.
Jen Walls is the poet par excellence as love is the focus and fulcrum of her poetry to mark a clear-cut difference from that of others. Her poetry reflects her care and concern, love and relation with the class of humans and its welfare. She occupies her place in the contemporary literary firmament by virtue of her poetic merits.
Jen Walls, who resides in the USA, is an international poet, author and literary reviewer. She published her first poetry collection, The Tender Petals, released in November 2014. Her second collection Om santi santi santi was published in 2016 by The Poetry Society of India and features co-authored duet poems. Her third collection of 108 spiritual nature poems is nearly ready release in very near future. Her articles appeared globally in the esteemed journals. Jen was awarded the 2016 Distinguished Poet Award from Writers International Network (WIN-Canada).
Her poetry, especially these poems," Be Great Love Today" and "In the Love Breaths" reflect love, love for the human world with 'love-blaze and gaze inwardly' as the nucleus of her poetry.
Jen Wall depicts not love for just an individual or a race, a region or a nation with boundaries and narrow confines of their own, but love in the welfare of the human race as a poet par excellence. Love is like pure fragrance, life is like the flower and the world is like the garden. Love is integral part of life like the fragrance of a flower. Love should have the heart to 'rise above' any and all prejudices and injustices.
Jen Walls writes a poem entitled "Be Great Love Today" with the revered concept of love. The poem is for the enlightenment of readers in respect of love as follows:
Be Great Love Today
Watch light's beauty stream
love-blaze and gaze inwardly;
breathe lovely moonbeams
Feel deep bliss calling
care so much-forgiving all;
shine with bright sunbeams
See forever love
try and share with everyone;
fly heart-rise above
Expand consciousness
plant gardens-blooming to thrive;
live each breath alive
Offer everything
give every kindness through life;
embrace grace of God
Feel dear blossoming
pray-listening through heartbeats;
be great love today
The poem, "Be Great Love Today" reflects her love only to "try and share with everyone" forever as love is life and life is love for everyone. Man should grow conscious of love. Man should 'expand consciousness' of love in the human race, not one but for all, leaving none.
Life bestows on one to have the sense of love. Beyond life, there is no love possible to 'give kindness through life'. Life without love is like the flower without fragrance. Love should flow in the life-stream;
Watch light's beauty stream
Love-blaze and gaze inwardly;
Her love for the human race is pure like moonbeams and sunrays. Without expecting anything in return, the moon by its delightful beams and the sun by the warm-sunny rays delight the human race. She wishes that everyone should excel the human race by virtue of love like the garden to purify the atmosphere by perfumes of its blooms and fill oxygen for breath by the verdant foliage of its trees;
expand consciousness
plant gardens -blooming to thrive
live each breath alive
For her, forgiveness is integral to love to turn the human race cheerful. As a result, it paves a way for peace in the human society.
In the face, happiness reflects in the shining of glows and sorrow in the fading of glows. Similarly, feelings echo 'through heartbeats'. Love should be great for the human race to 'embrace grace of God' as love justifies the ways of God to man.
For Jen Walls, love is light that shatters the darkness of evils and prejudices like hatred and violence. Love is light that is the stream of life with "love-blaze and gaze inwardly'. Love is beauty for gaiety, 'deep bliss calling'.
In the next poem, "In the Love Breaths", love flows through the veins of words and word-clusters in the lines. Jen Walls as Love poet appeals to fellow beings to have love for sharing all beautiful selflessly like the flower in love to share the beauty of sight, scent and all for the gaiety of onlookers. Let us analyze its text as follows:
In the Love Breaths
Share the beautiful
celebrate and uplift all;
gift joy's living bliss
Wake inside heart's kiss
taste pure yellow sunray's shine;
be kind-bloom divine
Light brightly with soul
tend loving seed - glowing far;
touch love everywhere
See heaven within
feel devotional prayer;
embrace loving grace
Watch each dream come true
greet divine exquisiteness;
meet in the love breaths
For Jen Walls, love is the concomitant of life and the human race is to 'celebrate and uplift all'. She advises the human race to gift lively joys, wake up the heart's lovely emotions and relish the cheerful sunshine by virtue of love,
gift joy's living bliss
wake inside heart's kiss
taste pure yellow sunray's shine;
Here, the sunrays rise from the sun in the way love emanates from man in the welfare of the human race. The sunrays are suggestive of love for the race. The race should spread cheerful and peaceful atmosphere by virtue of love in every heart.
Love fills the world with harmony everywhere. Love is pure like sunrays to illuminate the world with its light, bestowing on the human race a chance to enjoy life. The poem looks at the dimension of kindness in life to shine by its virtues and kindle or light the human race with soul,
be kind-bloom divine
Light brightly with soul
For the poet, the race of man is to sow the seed of love and glow in the hues of love everywhere,
tend loving seed-glowing far;
touch love everywhere.
God created the earth for man, the human race to turn it into heaven, counseling man to be away from the evils and perils, imminent. God at the same time exhorts the human race to justify His ways to man. Jen Walls has a firm belief that love builds heaven for man on earth. Love is the chief source for man to be happy and his life to be heavenly.
The poet's unshaken faith is that the human race finds 'heaven within' in the light of love everywhere. By virtue of love, the race realizes its dreams in the realm of facts,
come true
greet divine exquisiteness
Love fills life with joys as love is light to light the ways of life. Love is the antidote for all evils and God to avert all perils. Love is life to 'meet in the love breaths'
The Development of Theme
The concept of love in the two poems develops in the apt words and word-clusters. The less number of words in the lines carry deep thoughts with the images of moonbeams, sunbeams, plant garden, loving seed and so on. The poet proves that love is the most essential emotion to fill the human race with love, the essence of life.
Love flows through the texture of life, filling it with bliss in Jen Wall's poems. She rises as a humanist par excellence and wishes the human race peaceful and joyful existence.
Jen is appropriate in the delineation of love and its aspects. She makes clear that love warrants forgiveness in the first poem and kindness in the second poem.
Through the spectrum of poetry, Jen Walls shares her heartthrobs to the readers in the most appealing way to come forward for their heart-responses.
Jen Walls, as a poet of humanity wishes for the well-being of human race and love is the means inside her poetic mission.
Poetic Merits of the Poems
The first poem in eighteen lines and the second in fifteen lines are full of felicitous expressions. The poems are in the free verse. The poetic beauty is evident in every line. Jen Walls delineates the theme of love with poetic dexterity. Her expressions are precise and crispy as a sign of her special poetic dynamics.
The theme of the poems is appealing to every one. It is lofty in nature and model in stature as it is the concept of love, most essential and inevitable for the welfare of humans.
The poems are in the mellifluous flow to arrive at the befitting conclusions, 'meet in love breaths' to reflect the theme of love, essential for poetry.
Jen uses assonance and its use is evident in 'love-blaze and gaze', 'thrive...alive', 'embrace grace', bliss...kiss, shine...divine', 'embrace...grace', 'meet...greet'. It adds extra beauty to the poems with its musical effect.
Natural Symbols for Effect
Jen Walls employs natural symbols of the moonbeams and the sunrays. The beams come from the moon and the sunrays rise from the sun. The poet finds the beams and the rays natural in rise, and they symbolize selfless love. She wishes that love should wake within the natural emotion for the human race like moonbeams and sunrays, meant for its joys.
The living seed that symbolizes life, germinates from the soil to grow wide and glow in all directions in the hues of love. The seed is unlike the false seed that does not germinate in quest of its goal.
The plant of a garden or the garden of plants is the symbol of love as the flowers fill the atmosphere with perfume and charms with the hues of petals to create beauty as the sign of selfless love for the visitors.
To conclude my interpretation of the poems, Jen Walls is successful in presenting the concept of love in exquisite expressions.
References
- Walls, Jen. The Poems. Contemporary Literary Review India. Vol. 7. No. 3: CLRI August 2020, pp. 222-224.