With some of the Bard’s sonnets, you are driven to bury the hatchet despite being in a fit of pique. Going through the prose and verse of Digesi Pabasara Amarasingha is also a time where you blow away the cobwebs. Digesi received the ‘Most Emerging Author of the Year’ award at the Lak Wanitha Abhimani Award Ceremony, held on International Women’s Day at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall.
Poetry is Digesi’s forte and therefore, it becomes my central concern as well. Poetry is an incredibly captivating form of art that is able to keep your time occupied; it enchants your heart and casts a spell over your mind. “Poetry is a distinctive mixture of so many different characteristics that stand rather unique where imagery, rhythm and emotion take centre- stage”, Digesi said. Her approach with emotional poetry is rather remarkable. She uses this unique genre as an eloquent and compelling tool to make a connection with her readers.
The empathy and profound emotional impact that contain within this specific variety can call up a sweep of sentiment and passion. “Emotional poetry as I feel is able to cohabit with your instinct. I think these notions are omnipresent and cosmopolitan”, Digesi said. She maintains a moving and stirring inner emotional abyss with her words, which is one of the most significant elements involved in poetry at large.
Emotional poetry
Emotional poetry, as Digesi said sends a powerful invitation to its readers to feel and celebrate the world of the poet that nurtures affinity, pity and warmth between the reader and the poet. “The prevalence of musicality in poems depends on rhythm and rhyme that run across the words, composed by you”, Digesi said. Musicality has got a tremendous impact on the reader’s aural faculty; it has a knack to make an agreeable and gratifying pattern of sound that keeps the reader attracted. Using syllables is the next case in point that Digesi spoke about. She treats the use of stressed and unstressed syllables as an integral part of her poems; placing them appropriately is an art that a prominent poet often takes notice of.
Fuelling vigour and gravity to the poem is the duty of the poet’s application of syllables; the overwhelming flow of words puts an emphasis on the universality of the shared human intimacy. I adore the deep sense of harmony that dwells with Digesi’s poetry. It has a unique ability of settling the lines with each other that invites an ample degree of solidarity and continuity. Digesi is also fascinated by the use of awe-inspiring and breathtaking imagery. “Imagery in poetry is an indispensable area where you can facilitate your reader to enjoy with evocative mental pictures. It deliberately makes your words more and more alluring and enticing” Digesi said. She moreover uses metaphors that are unique to the sub continental setup; the Sri-Lankan identity, noticed within some of the poems that she has penned, makes them apt for an audience of readers whose cultural distinctions may easily absorb their narratives.
Disseminate a message
The clarity that Digesi invests in her poems makes them potent and graspable; she has mastered the style of injecting the irony and moral of her poems where the reader is not abandoned halfway through the poem. “I often try my level best to maintain the freshness and ingenuity of my poems, and after all, it is nothing but your identity as a poet”, Digesi said and lands on a variety of themes, which is of social, economic, and cultural significance. These themes have got their own impetus that makes the reader enlightened. Digesi’s intentional and cautious use of words, syntax and overall linguistic style give birth to a determined effect and disseminate a message.
An enduring degree of patience is a boon for a poet, no matter whether they are mature or immature. “You need a lot of patience to revise and refine your work. You should also know that you are vulnerable to criticism. Despite harsh and dire times in your journey of writing, you need to maintain your sincere passion. If you do so, beyond any doubt, you can easily drive your emotions to glow through your work”, Digesi said. By utilising diverse poetic structures and forms, Digesi boosts connotation and the implication of her work. Digesi’s idiosyncratic blend of creativity, enriched by her command of language, makes her a poet who is able to deliver worthwhile and vivid poems that effortlessly ring and roll with her readers.
