A Little Verse Becomes the Universe: Poetry in Times of Wars, Unrest and Despair
By Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
25 March 2026
" Should we talk of poetry and music in these violent times? Yes, we must for, only poetry and music have the power to bring about sanity to utter insanity...."
Turkish poet Naazim Hikmet's poem during the Second World War, translated from Turkish by the writer
What's poetry? Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal which the reader recognizes as his own. Poetry makes us think and what makes you think guides you in life. A poem is a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: It's the deepest part of autobiography. Poetry is an ordinary language raised to Nth power. It's boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate tough skin of words. Poetry in any language is the most distilled form of that language. What's stated in a poetic way, always strikes deeper and more effectively. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Those who're over-practical in life, often think erroneously that poetry is a favourite pastime of an indolent lotus-eater because poets are often viewed as rather impractical individuals who're lost in their own world. Sorry, this is an outright fallacious perception. Poets are critics and analysts of life. They're also the chroniclers of lives and times. They're the mouthpieces of the emotions that we all have but are unable to express. Poets do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. There's an English adage: A poet is a prophet. Poetry is indeed prophethood (Shayari Payambari Ast : Jami).
The way poetry motivates and inspires all of us, nothing else does. Read Rudyard Kipling's immortal poem, ' If.' One cannot remain uninspired. Recall those lines in this poem and feel intrinsically good and galvanized: " If you can fill the unforgiving minute, With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son! " Or read Patricia A Fleming's poem, " What life should be." Can you ever forget the concluding lines of this poem? The lines are, " To live a life that matters, To be someone of great worth. To love and be loved in return, And make my mark on Earth. " Take Gerard Manley Hopkins writing about despair in his poem ‘No Worst, There is None’. He evokes the unending, unrelenting nature of that despair with the unforgettable image of a mind having mountains – cliffs from which we fall. Repeating the word ‘mind’ in a grammatically odd way makes the phrase more striking still. The terrible twist is that we never reach the bottom. When the ancient Persian poet Rudaki says, " How can I hate anyone when all are my extensions," we wholeheartedly concur with him. When John Donne says, "Any man's death diminishes me because I'm involved in mankind," we think with the poet and empathise with all the people regardless of their class, creed, colour and country. Poetry makes us empathetic and humanistic. In other words, a little verse becomes the Universe.
In these times of raging global wars, these lines assume much greater significance and we must ask ourselves as to how can we hate anyone when all are our extensions and brethren? Are the war-mongers listening? Are they bereft of compunction? Don't they feel the prick of conscience? Ponder what the Pakistani Urdu poet Jaun Elia says, " Jang ki itni hi darkaar hai agar / Insaan, tu apne aap se jang kar " (If war cannot be averted at all / You'd better fight with yourself). This fight is metaphorical because you fight with your conscience and get the answer that any war is futile. After all, the voice of conscience is the voice from the Cosmos. Can we forget the lines from Sahir Ludhianvi's poignant nazm, " Ae shareef insano, jang talti rahe toh behtar hai "? The poet tellingly says in this poem that war itself is a problem. How can it provide a solution to any problem?
Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the gentle poet and revolutionary from Pakistan who was beloved universally, perhaps found himself asking the same question. Faiz had close ties with Yasser Arafat, Palestinian political leader and former chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and Mahmood Darwish, the Arab poet from Palestine. In 1978, during his exile in Beirut, he also became the first non-Arab editor of Lotus, a magazine of Afro-Asian writers, after the Lotus editor and Egyptian writer Youssef al-Sebai was assassinated in Cyprus.
Forever marred by his own exile and loss, Faiz penned beautifully heart wrenching poems, giving voice to the pain, anger, and resilience of Palestinians. In “Falastini Bachche Ke Liye Lori” (A Lullaby for Palestinian Children), he sings a lullaby to console (where consolation is impossible!) children orphaned by war. Poetry is an animated engagement with life, people and their varied issues. It's not a gossamer creation. It's full of gravitas. Today, Falastin or Palestine has become a poetic metaphor for the universal deprivation, depredation and ruination.
Poetry is a revelation. It's a satori that descends on an individual and dawns as an awakening. Poetry is a pursuit of excellence and enlightenment. Poetry is not an ivory-tower production house. It's a manifesto of ground realities. Poetry survives the times and climes. To quote Urdu and Persian poet Nashtar 'Nishapuri', " Main rahoon na rahoon, fikra nahin / Hoga meri shayari ka zikra kahin " (No matter whether I live or not / Some day, somewhere, my poetry will be read). Poetry is a balm for the weary souls. In these turbulent times, poets have a far greater role to play to assuage humanity's frayed nerves and provide a definite direction to the misguided humans. The givenness of poetry reminds us of our own givenness. We have been made to receive. Poetry reminds us that our being is given as a gracious gift and that our end is only found in the giver. To love poetry is to fall in love with life and who loves life deeply respects all lives and all creatures, big or small.
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URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/little-verse-become-universe-poetry/d/139392
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