Expressionism in Abdul Rahman's Poems

In another poem titled ‘The Witness’ the poet gives the picture of sunrise employing expressionism. For all the poets in all parts of the world the “Sunrise’ is a beautiful natural scene to be enjoyed. The ‘Sunrise’ is traditionally used as a symbol to denote the dawn of a new era. But for the poet, Abdul rahman sees it in a different angle. Every sunrise brings sad news and bad happenings in this globe.

Genocide, cold-blooded murder of political leaders, gruesome murders due to the acts of terrorism and many ugly things are brought to our attention by the media in every morning. So sunrise can not be taken as a symbol of new era.

This poet also sees the sunrise as a murder.

White-dotted

Black is

Murdered by the White.

In the green-colored

Tongues of

The earth

Droplets of blood

Which try to

Transform as Words.

In India slaves will be put dots over their body .The Night is described as a black and the stars look like dots put in the body of the slave. The sunlight of the dawn is described as the White. Appearance of the sunlight automatically removes the darkness of the night. It makes the poet to describe the morning scene as a murder of the black. This poem was written during the struggle of the blacks in South Africa. Through this poem the poet conveys his sympathy to the struggle of the Blacks and at the same time gives a different picture of the sunrise, which no other poet has imagined.

Hitherto the ‘Dawn’ is described to denote ‘Hope’. It is always used as a symbol for the emergence of a golden age.

The poet who is most aware of his social context refuses to accept this universal symbol. Because every dawn brings very bad news. Calamities that happen due to cyclone and heavy floods are the curses of Nature

,which man can not control.

But genocide,arrogant wars,aggression,conflicts that arise due to hatred, religious fundamentalism and linguistic jingoism are due to the evil designs of mankind which we have to prevent at any cost.Every dawn brings a bad news like this.This makes the poet to give a quite different portrayal of the dawn.Here he adopts expressionism to give a deep meaning and dense thoughts to give us a provoking poem.