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Book Review:
Lines with emotive force
It is the urgency of experience, the felt need to express a surge of
reaction to the Divine as well as the diurnal that gives distinction and
emotive force to Lynn Ockersz's poetry. The lines spring not as varta
kavi that record a moment of whimsy or pathos, nor from cerebral choice,
but anvilled in the heat and stress of strenuous active engagement in
confronting his inner self or contemporary society.
Title:
The Peace Thou Gives
Author: Lynn Ockersz
Genre: Poetry |
 Harry Potter mesmeric lore thrown into
War casualty tolls and cricket scores
Political gossip and superstar shows
(The Poor Man's Cocktail)
The peace of the graveyard grates on the ear
It is not the Peace of Love Thou holds so dear
But an eerie stillness born of fear
Welling in hearts by
worldly
Might brought to heel
(As the Gun-Smoke Settles)
The poet's ear that makes a line echo and hold, not pass through a
reader's mind, an awareness of the way language works is evident: to
that extent, Ockersz's response to more than four years of being
immersed in literature and familiarizing himself both as a student and
Visiting Lecturer with the work of Donne, Herbert and Eliot shows.
It accounts for a seasoned scholar's delight in the first
manifestation of Ockersz's abilities D C R A Goonetilleke in Sri Lankan
English Literature and the Sri Lankan People 1917-2003 also identifies
the distinctive quality of Ockersz's early poetry succinctly 'Its
essence is controlled thought, an epigrammatic balancing of ideas'.
It was this fusion of intense feeling and equable views that gave
both force and poise to the poems in Flame and Sparks but a new note has
developed in his new collection The Peace Thou Gives - more confident
and consequently, occasionally less solemn, capable of using a lighter
tone to accommodate the sardonic and satirical vein.
Where the poem centres on religion, however the fervor is
undiminished. One may not be able to accept Ockersz's tenets but the
deep sincerity manifestly 'felt in the blood and felt along the heart'
to quote Wordsworth's irreplaceable line cannot but make the reader
share his feelings at the moment of reading, as is the case with Maker
and the Mould and The Peace Thou Gives.
Flame and Sparks voiced an impressive commitment to social justice;
the preface to The Peace Thou Gives states 'I hope I have succeeded ...
in giving to my poems a substantial local socio-political dimension and
topicality'.
Far from being 'an artificial implant', the element which another
critic perceptively identified as 'social responsibility' impels Ockersz
to express himself in poetry as well as the religious impulse to glorify
his God. In the poet's vision the two are inseparable. The true measure
of Ockersz's achievement lies in his ability to convey his sense of the
operation of the Divine Will to readers whose understanding of
Christianity is derived solely from English literature, through the
medium of language and rhythm. Yeats wrote of 'the craft of verse' and
even if Ockersz had not significantly used the word 'crafted' in his
preface, it is apparent that he is not of the hit-or-miss school of
poetasters. Clarity of imagery, firmness of structure emphasized by an
unforced and unobtrusive use of rhyme and an awareness that 'the ear is
the true reader' gives many of his poems the power of lodging in the
memory, for instance
The Miscarriage
The world comes
crashing down on the powerless
Because some trembling hands cannot weigh evenly
And obey the Call of Conscience coming from Eternity
But would prefer to heed
Hades cold prompting
And choose safety of self,
Position and pelf ...
Ghost Writer too has its appeal, as Ockersz deftly playing on a term
older than Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost unhesitatingly and unerringly
places a small plain word that is full of meaning at a prominent point
Am I not like Moses who felt
Small before Thy Writ
But Thou his spirit did lift
I too look to Thee O giver of grit.
Embellished as it is with miniature pictures not always entirely in
keeping with the starkness of some of the poems, but charming in
themselves, the slim book is likely to prove a popular Christmas gift to
favoured friends because of its furtherance of their faith.
For those who may echo Yeats
'Homer is my example and his unchristened heart' it may promote
discussion of societal dysfunction or the dynamics of poetry.
- Dr Lakshmi de Silva
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