Ae Suk Shin
Title: The Colours of Spring
Author: Kuma Raj Subedi (Australia)
Year of Publication: 2023
Publisher: Sahitya Post
Genre: Poetry
The Colours of Spring is an outcome of Kuma’s various experiences in life, as an educator, poet, migrant, father, husband, and son of the family. As Kuma confesses his mental health journey which I can only imagine, only the person who goes through it can feel the strain, so do his verses manifest his diversity of emotional turmoils. I would like to say that his verses remind me of Robert Lowell’s Life Studies as Lowell’s mental health. The Colours of Spring represent not only natural spring restoration but also multicultural colours, and racial diversity.
It is not difficult to find that he has challenged and embraced diverse people, their cultures, and discrimination as a stranger. His verses are like a furnace in which all heterogeneity is melded into a new one, without losing his uniquity as in “Stars do not melt, nor do they freeze” (shooting Stars).
To Kuma, poetry is his Penelope that is his destination to reach as a life goal and to find beauty in simplicity and peace throughout a long journey. Kuma has gone through adventures like Odysseus did. He left the country Nepal, where he has grown up culturally and has been educated. With promising ambition, he launched his voyage towards Australia. He has stuck to his love and passion for poetry, as Adastra per Aspera as Odysseus’s journey home is a long and arduous one, fraught with temptation, unexpected dangers, adventures, and emotional turmoils. Kuma has sublimated countless ups and downs that he has encountered throughout his journey of life. His verses are the outcome of indomitable adventures of life. However, after his achievements in his career in Australia, he refused to remain ‘an aged man’ as in ‘sailing ‘to the city of Byzantium’, but he is eager to remain a vigorous poet.
It seems to me that Kuma’s verses have masculinity as well as patriarchy, which white men hesitate to manifest openly.
The lid of patriarchy
blocked the outlet- she continued to boil
sustaining the stream-
taking care of babies
washing, ironing and scrubbing
the continued fire
darkened her visage
on the verge of bursting
Nora is conceived.
Bang..bang…bang….
(A Cooking Vessel)
She works for him
She lives for him
She breathes for him
For
he has an extra piece of flesh.
(Masculinity)
In the Western culture that is full of Noras, LGBT advocates, he amazingly represents his opinion without feeling self-conscious. I would like to give him a big hand. Kuma embraces Western culture with respect, somehow, he has been assimilated, but doesn’t lose his grown-up cultural aspects in a way of well harmony.
Kuma’s first anthology, The Colors of Spring is the fruit of his emotional turmoil and growth, an indomitable will, and adjustment, heterogeneity, and embracement.
My pains, sorrows and turbulent thoughts
Have not been captured there
It’s a hollow representation of me
Where are the colours , the nexus of relationships
And the labyrinth of memories?
(Reflection)
Now, I have to say that he is perfectly performing as pieces of a Mosaic, rather than a fusion. His anthology encourages many migrant poets as well as critics to actively get involved in literature in Australia. After taking a long affair with poetry, Kuma finally shows us his love, The Colours of Spring , which is full of heart breaking poems. I can’t wait for his second anthology to be released into the world.
Foot note:
*Penelope is a character in Homer’s Odyssey. She was the queen of Ithaca and was the daughter of Spartan king, Icarius and Asterodia. Penelope is known for her fidelity to her husband, Odysseus.
*Robert Trail Spence Lowell IV, an American poet. He is known as a Confessional poet, who wrote in direct, colloquial speech rhythms and used images that reflected intense psychological experiences, often from childhood or battles with mental illness or breakdown. Life Studies (1959) is the fourth book of poems by Robert Lowell.
*Sailing to Byzantium (1927) by William Butler Yeats.
