‘art and soul Tambi: A delightful figure
His was no grave, looming presence, by no means cast in the Guru mould. Tambi was a bohemian at heart, writes
B.N. Goswamy
Every man has poetry
within him. Poetry is the awareness of the mind to the universe. It
embraces everything in the world'... It is a universal force and like
God it can never be
discovered, although it
will always be present directing thought'... Poetry is a descent to the
roots of life.
— Tambimuttu
The
manner in which, sometimes,
a rank outsider, a maverick figure, arrives from nowhere and becomes a
leavening agent affecting the cultural life of a people, always takes me
by surprise. When a colleague in San Diego last year mentioned the name
of Tambimuttu as a person who had left a deep imprint on her mind, I
dipped into my own memories and came up with a vague recollection of the
name because a poem of this Srilankan man was included in our ‘syllabus’
for English literature at college. But not much more than that I could
come up with. Till, of course, intrigued, I started reading up. And the
more I read, the more fascinated I became with this unusual life.
Tambimuttu’s name –
his full name was much longer – was a mouthful, "a maternal
sound, like a prayer to a forgotten Indo-European mother goddess",
as someone described it. Linked by ancestry to an old aristocratic
family from Jaffna, nephew on the one side of Gnana Prakasar, great
Jesuit lexicographer, and on the other to the celebrated indologist and
art-historian, Ananda Coomaraswamy, this young man, barely twentythree
years of age, arrived in London in 1938.
Apparently, however, he
came as no ordinary tourist or visitor, but as one armed with ideas and
ambitions about starting a poetry journal there. One can imagine the
insecurity, but also the daring of it all: a young Asian, virtually
unknown to anyone, member of a subject nation, alien to the literary
field in London, hoping to impact the literary and artistic scene in an
unfamiliar and somewhat supercilious land?
He could, initially, sense
a natural hostility. There was some jeering, and some sniping, but
Tambimuttu rode all that, and launched together with a friend, his
magazine. Poetry London is how it was christened. And guess who
all contributed to the very first issue? Some of the most renowned names
in those parts: Dylan Thomas, Stephen Spender, Herbert Read, Lawrence
Durrell. Suddenly, there was a stir in literary circles. Other great
names started appearing in the magazine: T.S. Eliot, Iris Murdock,
Kathleen Raine, Sacheverell Sitwell. The year of the launch was the same
in which the second World War began.
What is astonishing at the
same time is how many artists – apart from writers and poets –
Tambimuttu was able to associate with his enterprise. Some of the
biggest names in the world of art in England painted covers for Tambi’s
journal, illustrated poems, provided decorative tailpieces: Henry Moore,
Graham Sutherland, Barbara Hepworth, Ceri Richards, Lucien Freud. The
list kept growing, all on a shoestring budget. And one begins to wonder
what was it about Tambi that drew people towards him? His lithe and
handsome appearance? Fascination for a man from the mysterious Orient?
Openness of manner? The warmth with which he came across? The sheer
passion for poetry which he felt, and others sensed in him? Perhaps a
bit of all of these. But, whatever it was, one is struck with the
enormous affection in which he came to be held by so many people from so
many different fields.
Consider this passage from
Timothy Leary: "In the twenty-three years since our first meeting,
every time I think of Tambimuttu a light glows in my brain and I smile
and feel a little better. And everytime our paths intersected, the glow
would increase and my smile break into a happy laugh of welcome."
There were those who saw him as a transmitter of ancient wisdom and
beauty. To continue with Leary: "Perhaps he was not an entity of
this time and place. There was this mystery about Tambimuttu, that
Merlin sense about him that transformed an ordinary situation into
something a bit magical, raised us up a level or two on the splendour
dial." But clearly Tambi was no grave, looming figure, by no means
cast in the Guru mould. He was a bohemian at heart, and there are
stories about his drinking parties, his hand-to-mouth living, slovenly
quarters, bouts of frustration and anger. But always one ends up reading
how utterly disarming he could be: this man who had become within a few
short years a highly regarded poet, critic, editor, publisher.
The press that Tambi
helped launch was called the Lyrebird Press, and it is wonderful to see
him insistently persuading different painters to paint the lyrebird for
his covers. The lyrebird is a native of Australia; the male of the
species has a lustrous plumage, brilliant to behold, dazzling in its
colours, which he raises like a lyre or harp in the mating season. In
natural ways it reminds one of our own peacock, except that it is much
smaller in size, and has a quality that the peacock does not possess: it
can imitate the cries of all manner of birds, causing great confusion
but also great merriment. Perhaps Tambi liked the bird so much because
he was a little like one himself: light of touch, possessed of seductive
plumage, capable of speaking in many tongues at the same time.
The story of Tambi’s
life – which ended in 1983 – is long and crowded with literary
events. But Michael Horowitz said it feelingly in a poem written after
his funeral:
What’s left/ of a life -
/ old bones/ underground/ or burned away/ to a lingering scent/ brief
embers/ of ashes, turned/ to faint shadows - /smoke bruising/ then
leaving/ the afternoon air./ What’s left?/ The blank/blue page/ of
your passing.
Courtesy:Spectrum - Tribune
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Saturday, August 15, 2015
Tambi: A delightful figure
Friday, August 14, 2015
Birth Centenary of Poet Tambimuttu
Poetry London (1939–51)
Poetry London–New York (1956–60)
Poetry London–New York (1956–60)
Poetry London/Apple Magazine, which had just two issues,
A Sri Lankan Tamil from an affluent English-speaking Roman Catholic family, M. J. Tambimuttu arrived in Britain at the age of 22. Having already published three volumes of poetry in Ceylon, he soon immersed himself in the literary world of London’s Soho and Fitzrovia. Within little more than a year of his arrival he had founded the magazine Poetry London (1939–51) with the writer and musician Anthony Dickins. While Dickins' involvement quickly diminished, Tambimuttu edited the first fourteen volumes of the magazine and a number of books, as well as writing his own poetry.
In July 1943, with the backing of publishers Nicholson and Watson (on the recommendation of T. S. Eliot who was an admirer of his), he established Editions Poetry London, which published contemporary verse and prose, as well as art books, in hard cover. Tambimuttu was also a regular participant in the BBC radio series Talking to India during the Second World War. A man of charisma as well as a talented editor, he had an array of friends and acquaintances with whom he enjoyed the pubs and cafes of Fitzrovia.
Tambimuttu returned to Sri Lanka in 1949 then moved to New York in 1952 where he launched the magazine Poetry London–New York (1956–60) as well as continuing to publish short fiction and poetry of his own, and lecturing at the Poetry Center and New York University. In 1968 he returned to London where he founded a final magazine, Poetry London/Apple Magazine, which had just two issues, and a publishing company, the Lyrebird Press. He died of heart failure in London in 1983.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
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