Nissim Ezekiels poems are as a rule lucid and are splendidly evocative and satisfyingly sensuous.

His
poetry reveals more careful craftsmanship, a more conscious intellectuality. In quality and integrity
they are conversational directness and ease without losing himself in discursiveness. Let us take our
Poet, lover, Birdwatcher where beauty and bareness of statement go together where it weaves the
themes of birdwatching, wooing and writing poetry together, and shows their resemblance: the
need for patient, quiet waiting until the rare bird is revealed, the woman feels loved and the right
word is found for the poem.

The poem of twenty lines in two stanzas is from the Exact Name. It is a rather popular poem, much
anthologized and studied. One reason for its popularity is that it outlines a sort of poetic credo. The
message of the poem is clear. The best poets wait for words. But this waiting is by no means,
simple. The poet cannot while away his time, but like the careful birdwatcher, has to remain ever
alert. There is the eternal vigil that is the price for the gift of poetry. To stay poised in that tension is
what Ezekiel recommends to poets. The whole meaning is enhanced and elaborated through the
elaborate and extended comparison with bird watching. The first stanza begins with making love
which is like the experience of hunting. Patience rears up desires to be emotive that would yield
results. A best lover waits for maturing a lovable situation like appropriate words used by the poet.
Art of seducing involve patience. The lovers hunt for beloved is a calculated exercise of will akin to
love that relax on a hill, fluttering of timid wing like that of a bird;
waiting is thus a search for moral of love, loving and to be loved. The poet too finds his moral
proved in this way by introspection, waiting and watching.

We the human always search for unique, rare and uncanny. We the lovers, the birdwatchers and the
poets thus roam about Along deserted lanes and where the rivers flow In silence near the source, or
by a shore Remote and thorny like the heart's dark floor to meet a perfect match, To watch the rarer
birds or perfect word of articulation. At these conditions, the mythical women of creativity, Eldora
do or zenith of supreme slowly turn around, bright in luster yet unfathomable With darkness at the
core. Ezekiel , however, finds no remedial for the poets who are forever romantic and philanderer ,
for ever lost in crooked, restless flight, even though his poems brings back hearing to The deaf or the
blind recover sight.


Nissim Ezekiel: Image Courtesy
In the very title word, an implied metaphor is drawn between the three diversified elements poet,
lover, bird watcher. But shockingly the three elements are interwoven by their nature of patience.
The bare statement of the poem is that a poet, a lover and a birdwatcher must be cool and
composed and decided words, blessed beloved and the rarest birds respectively.

The three element courtship, bird watching and poetry are thus related; in each case, the attitude
that is recommended is of passive alertness, not of anxiety, hurry, aggression, or hyperactivity. The
more one is agitated, the less one gains. The one who is loved is not chased like a quarry, but daring.
Ultimately, the rewards of such worshipful patience are great: what is gained is not just flesh and
bone but myths of light/ with darkness at the core. Here we see that for Nissim, love and poetry
are means to a special knowledge, wisdom transcendence even. There is a major miracle that the
two bring about: The deaf can hear, the blind recover sight. Poetry, then, like love, is ultimately a
different way of perceiving reality of seeing, hearing and experiencing differently.

A typical feminist reading of the poem misinterprets the poem as the inherent patriarchal authority
that lives within the poem and which is generally a reflection of the poets attitude also. They object
women to be birds of prey or loving to hunting. I think the poem is no male centric; it is about art of
living and art of writing. Nissim has a modernist bent of mind and his Poet, lover, Birdwatcher is a
modern poem. It is not a simple or unitary phenomenon, but a rather complex set of attitudes and
idioms. Here in this poem is a precise use of language, especially of well crafted images, and their
largely ironic stance.
- See more at: http://ardhendude.blogspot.in/2012/06/analysis-of-nissim-exekiels-poet-
lover.html#sthash.ICSlvxxC.dpuf