By Gilbert Koh

Reaching for Stones
Chandran Nair
Ethos Books (2010) / 151 pages / SGD19.26

This hefty collection, compiling the writer's works from 1963 to 2009, opens with a promising poem entitled 'Lallang', which is striking for its imagery:

it sways calypso-like because it must;
do not think it's love you've found.
the lallang's cutting edge is lust

let the wind cut its fingers on lallang
in the fields near the bo tree:
there is no lallang to cut oneself on
in a field of dead memories

An explanatory footnote states that lallang is "imperata cylindrical, a tropical grass that has sharp edged leaves that can draw blood if handled carelessly". I found it curious that Nair would have bothered to insert such a footnote (surely 'lallang' is not such an uncommon word in Asia), when elsewhere in the book many greater mysteries are regularly left unexplained.

Many of Nair's poems read like entries in a private journal, or messages to friends and acquaintances. The problem is that Nair provides little context for the general reader, who is often left feeling somewhat like a not-so-welcome stranger deliberately being kept in the dark. An example is the poem 'turning point (for andy)':

this return to such cold unangry words.
now we turn on less than perfect points –
the dry sun everywhere is our only direction.
a friend whose voice, I broke for years
sounds just as futile as before
though the wonder is a wound scarless

yet though the mind accepts this skin
not cut by sharpness that is past,
will years return their silent voice?

That was the entire poem. At the end of it, 'Andy' remains faceless and colourless. Without knowing anything more about Andy or his past troubles with Nair, it's difficult for the reader to care about the poem. 'Celine', a five-line piece, has the same flaw:

liar. you lie to feel yourself alive. to hate.
the world moved … you ran to stand alone
the applause in your ears is your own
but you heard the world
and despised them

It's clear that as a writer, Nair connects deeply with the people in his life. Friends and family members populate and inspire his poetry, so much that he often includes their names in the titles of his poems. Apart from 'turning point (for andy)' and 'celine', other examples include 'sincerity (for mohd.); 'the land (for k.c.g.)'; 'for laura'; and 'the forsaken (for ho ping)'. Some of these poems are interesting – however, all of them could be improved if Nair had bothered to flesh out the background and compose with a little more consideration for the general reader. Otherwise, these poems smack a little too much of the writer's self-indulgence.

One poem I did enjoy was 'gamblers never win, but here's fifty dollars (for kong kong)'. In this warm, nostalgic poem, Nair writes about how his late father-in-law used to go on holidays with the family to Genting Highlands. While not a gambler, his father-in-law would nevertheless give Nair $50, just for the amusement of seeing how long it would take for the younger man to lose it all at the casino:

kong kong loved to ride in buses
especially ones going to genting
where he admired the view, drank black coffee
and never gambled
but his money did

his fifty dollars took a while to cross
the blackjack table and when I stumbled outside
the wind was of course misty cold
but my father-in-law leaned head bald
on (what else?) a railing
trademark cloth cap in hand:
his "sucker" and the offer of a beer
cemented years of affection

since you left
no one rides the bus
to genting anymore
kong kong

At its best, Nair's poetry is striking for its use of imagery. Perhaps this is to be expected, for Nair has a passion not just for poetry, but also for painting. In fact, in his poems, Nair often employs metaphors drawn from visual art. In 'abstract', he writes:

just another small abstract
to certify this hole
deepening into time
is movement into anguish.
failing which call it another poem
talking in words that fail to form
my life, of which I absolve myself

I also liked the images in 'no triangle':

now
the red sun dipping,
trees grown beards.
What's left of day
slinks into memory
a bad debtor faceless
nameless, friendless
like the sun behind
camouflaged tress rooted.
ignorance, avarice
spread their cancer
betrayal, loss
one more friend friendless ...

However, Nair's most striking poems are a series of eight or nine consecutive poems inspired by the landscape of Pakistan (where he lived and worked for several years). Here, Nair repeatedly paints his pictures of the harsh Karachi deserts while simultaneously weaving in metaphors of love, sex and passion. The poems here are challenging and intriguing, and definitely worth rereading. From 'you cannot learn a desert's contours':

... but watch
the desert sleep beneath your ashen sky
and she will beat out hidden rhythms
till your days become
her subterranean caverns

the desert does not love by choice
you wet only her desire, her sands
shift and seeds vanish into motherhood
and dreams of other travelers
who will unveil her other masks

And from the same series, an excerpt from 'reaching for stones':

her mind sleeps within stones
unimpelled by love and philosophies
love falls between time and shadows
as the desert closes light,
diffuses streams, undoes patterns
dries up rain
unmoving hands reaching for stones

Overall, I would say that Nair's book is worth its price tag. It is by no means a captivating book from start to finish, but the unevenness is perhaps inevitable in a volume that comprises more than 100 poems written over several decades. However, throughout its many pages, there are enough gems in this collection to reward the diligent reader for his efforts.

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