In search of topoemas

A Topoema

Octavio Paz

It was 1996, I had some time off and was regularly loitering the book shelves of District library, Guwahati. I was ready to gulp anything that could food for thought and one day I picked up –The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz . I knew nothing about him at that time except that he is a big name.  I borrowed the book home, tried to read and comprehend but most of them were smarter than me at that time. To me poetry is to feel not to understand, so I was not bothered as long as I could feel them. What attracted me was some bizarre line in the form juxtaposition of word and sketch. They were named Topoema by the author.

I didn’t had a clue what was it all about but it appealed me so much that –I had those pages photocopied (may be illegal as per copyright act) and I am carrying those page till today though I have moved from Guwahati to Dibrugarh then  to Delhi then to Dehradun then…..over next twenty years.Those scripts continued to puzzle me and after the advent of internet I started to goggle what is topoeama by Octavio Paz but I found nothing.

When I could afford and most books become available in online shops I brought the book from flipkart then I found some clue and fell in love with the concept of topoeama .

It seems Mr. Paz also had some problem with words (or their meaning…also read words...

Even In net sphere now a days there is a very very little information available on Topoema .But  gradually I became convinced that in order to escape time and space and to give meaning and mystery to words Mr. Paz created Topema.

Later I found a paragraph about Topoema in a Spanish language in a Spanish website and had it translated with help of Google translate it says

“One of the most common obsessions in his poems is the desire to escape time, which led to the creation of a poetry space whose poems were baptized by the author under the name of topoemas (Moles + poem). This is what poetry space, poetry as opposed to the typical temporal and discursive. It is an intellectual and minority poetry, almost metaphysical in sign language also includes visual signals. In topoemas, as occurred in the poetry of the avant-garde, stress is suggestive and expressive power of visual images. There is no doubt that the last poetry of Octavio Paz is quite esoteric, but, beyond that, above all his poetry is noted for its lyricism and the magical sense that the author gives to words."

I said “Pretty surreal but damn appealing”

Much later I was intending to fictionalize Surrealism (not that I will write about art history but I intended to take some theme of surrealism and to write a fiction on it),I was lost then this Topema came to my rescue by becoming a part of the story .

About art history fictionalization 2: Impressionism

Uddip Talukdar The forgotten face

Claude Monet, Impression,1872

It’s paradoxical. I started to work on a story with the idea that I will fictionalize the impressionist art movement.  No, I will not write about art history but I will take spirit of the art movement as a theme for the new story. The idea of building a story out of a painting came to my mind when I came across this painting being made by one of my friend. I took the required permission and I fixed the title of the Story –Impressionism (চিহ্নবাদ).  But those of you who have little idea about art history will defiantly say that this painting doesn’t belong to the –impressionist genre.   

              This story is all about genesis. Conception of the story is somewhat similar to how some new and awkward art style was named as ‘impressionist’ by a sarcastic comment of art critique. A Claude Monnet work ‘Impression, Sunrise’ (1860) that was criticized as ‘Impression — I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.* (See wiki for detail by clicking here) Gradually the art form used in ‘Impression,’ became a style in itself.  full of visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities * for detail click here 

           When I saw the work The Forgotten Face for the first the impression was that of pain of genesis (of creation /creator or procreation).The impression created by the painting, idea of creation and the pain associated with the whole compulsive process was so overpowering that gradually it took the form of a story  'Cihnabad’ (ছিহ্ণবাদ not প্রতিতীবাদ which is the literal translation of impressionism in Assamese). Sometimes I feel I should have destroyed the story soon after I finished because of the negativity of the story or the story might have hurt a few people.

Later on I decided against it. As I believe the product of that huge traumatic mental exercise was not just a case of pseudocyasis but if we continue with the flow we might find some answer to our eternal problems.  

Also read# :Fictionalizing DADAISM

Darker side of creative work

To me a creative work was a creative work - darker the better till a few years back.

As our mind is not as simple as discussed in a linear book .While a dark literature tends to explore more inner self of a human mind, the most complex thing to understand of the entire study subjects.

I too explored the darker side of the mind which tends to affect me the person.

Accidental reading of a book called “Confessions of a pilgrim” –in conversation with Paulo Coelho had jolted me to some extent.  Mr. Coelho had too many real life experience of such darker side of life (Some of them are too ironic to be true…but I believe his extraordinary dramatic life events are natural to his ups and down).In the book he told the writer that once he completed one novel on his experience with darker self. But once he finished the book he destroyed the whole project as it appeared to him that its darker side might affect the mindset of billions of reader he is having as to many he is a spiritual guru also.

It was an amazing thing to me-how can a writer, destroy his own work after going through all the pain and suffering.

But he did just exactly that.

Off late there is an upcoming discussion about the darker side of dark art work say it 7 Khoon Maf, Black swan.

In Black Swan we can feel how an innocent, pretty girl gradually metamorphosed to a dark, murderous, ugly swine just for the sack of creativity .And those disturbing images were created so brilliantly that the viewers could also felt the agony of that sweet girl throughout the movie.

No doubt everything were perfect .But was it necessary to subject the viewer to go through all those masochistic creative exercise the writer/director/creator undertook?

The argument continues. To take Coelho’s path and destroy your creation for positivity O the Black Swan path and create a work that might affect others negatively.

About art history fictionalization 1: DADAISM

 

I love following time. Around 4 years back the bug of art history hit me so hard that I began to reside in the abyss of art world. It started with some mere curiosity and within a few days I got to know that each territory of art history was so vast that whatever idea I could gather about a part of an period was not enough, in every part of ART History there is a hint that the question in mind will be answered in another ART period.

I was in the middle of a creative crisis of my own. I felt being hunted by character I have created over the years for my fictions. I was writing a series of parallel stories with shades of darkness. It was not intentional though but due to nature of those story most of the characters were in deep physiological trouble. Much later after writing those stories I felt being hunted by those characters. Somehow I felt may be I will find solutions to their problems in Art History. It was not about solving my problems but of the characters.     

It was a creative challenge and I like challenges in my creative expression. I got the idea full of impudence –how about fictionalization of those ART HISTORY theme THROUGH MY CHARECTERS? I stared exploring the gullies of those ART period to find some thematic correlation, In cabaret Voltaire ,Van Gogh , Dali ,………

I took up those periods of European art history (Impressionism, Dadaism and Surrealism to be precise) as theme for my forthcoming story. I had to blend art history theme to my story.

I felt creating something that is dark is painful, time consuming (one story in one year) and the darkness of my character disturbed me to the extend that I was on the verse of nervous breakdown.

One of the themes I took for fictionalization was of Dadaism.

ABOUT DADAISM: Dadaism or DADA ART was the creative by product of social depression created out of 1^st world war, 1914-. Intellectuals, thinkers moving out of homeland started revolting against normal social structure and started creating art under protest. Initially their art were criticized as anti art (!) as many of their works were mere juxtaposition of painting, photograph making less and less sense.  But they become extremely popular as art lover could relate them to the depressive stage the society was under at that time.

The success of those arts started the idea of collage, montage, ready-mades in art. And soon the revolution was passed on to cinema, advertising world, literature and many of the work remained classic till toady.

The STORY ON DADAISM : The sense of social darkness that was around in west during World War I had some stark similarity to the darkness of my birthplace Assam, in the sad decade of 80’s. 

I took the clue from here and tried to create a montage (A form of DADA expression, where we put together two three things to create something new, as in collage) out of the situation .That is a montage of

• pain of my characters and my feeling as a writer 
• Assam in 80s
• And of course hallucination of my characters

About the painting used:

I remember interviewing one of the very reputed Painter Mr.Jiten Hazarika confessing with a sloka. “Eksweasya padarthai nanrupe prkapalm” ( ‘একশেচছছ পদার্থই নানাৰুপে প্রক্লপনম.. মানে একেটাবস্তুকে নানাজনে ভিনভিন ভাবে চাব পাৰ.)Meaning it is up to the viewer (reader) to interpret the meaning of a creative form. Most of the artist believes that way and hates explaining their work of art.

                                       

Still I thought it will be better to explain the painting depicting the story. As many people are curious and enquiring….

The painting is also a montage –created by Dr.Uddip Talukdar,on request. Montage is a form developed (montage:French for "putting together" a product of Dada  revolution where a creative structure is made putting together many items like photograph ,painting etc .Montage later on became a integral part of cinematic narrative also ).

Component of the montage  

The courtroom: may be a tribute to Kafka as in his story Joseph K accused of a crime he is not aware of.

Probable Interpretation; Those of us who were brought up in the Assam in the dark period of 80s have a sense of being guilty of some crime we are not aware of. Like Joseph K we don’t know our crime but something hunts us .

The commode: It is the most famous ready made created in DADA revolution. (Fountain by Marcel Duchamp)

  Probable Interpretation: ??? May be its time to flush out the filth and darkness that’s fills our head.

The stage/the boot /the hanging noose/the hat: Waiting for Godot?

Probable Interpretation: In those dark period of 80s Assam  We had nothing to do (school closed, an election without peoples participation, ethnic trouble and the fear of someone attacking you …So  we waited ?waiting for whom and  what we never knew.

PS: I still believe “eksweasya padarthai nanrupe prkapalm” and …

    … I am not art historian /art critique/artist. I only expressed what I conceived in words (or call it visual narrative) to full of my conviction.