Bridging Connections – In memory of Richard, of Rajani, and Thousands of Others

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An anthology of Sri Lankan poetry in English, Arjuna Parakrama, Bridging Connections, Poetry, Rajan Hoole, Rajani Thiranagama, Richard de Zoysa, Richard de Zoysa: his life, some work ….. and a death, University Teachers for Human Rights of Jaffna University

Richard de Zoysa was killed 21 years ago, on the night of February 19^th 1990. Several poems were written in his memory in the months that followed, and I have collected many of these in ‘An anthology of Sri Lankan poetry in English’ as well as in ‘Richard de Zoysa: his life, some work ….. and a death’.

 Appalling as his death was, it was not an isolated incident, in the culture of violence this country had developed in the decade before his death. This got worse in the two decades that followed. More recently however things have improved, though there will be need of constant vigilance to ensure that violence is not renewed.

Lakmahal 7 – Opening Doors: Changing Places

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Lakmahal, Old Place, Virginia Woolf

View from the Original Guest Room at Lakmahal

The original guest room at Lakmahal, the one downstairs, is no longer a guest room. It is where I sleep now, having moved downstairs twenty years ago, when I realized that it was the only way to remain equable in a house occupied by three generations of relatively headstrong people. My father had kindly provided his married children with houses of their own but, in classic Sri Lankan fashion, he did not think an unmarried child required a place of his own.

I, on the contrary, having read Virginia Woolf when I was very young, and knowing that one needs one’s own space in which to write, thought I was the most deserving, given that writing was the most important thing I ever wanted to do. But producing children rates higher than books in our everyday world, so I had actively myself to seek a place of my own, and in the end indeed to build one. But long before I could afford to do that, I screwed up my courage and finally decided to ask my grandmother whether I could move downstairs.

Colombo Changes 7 – Various theatricals

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Alfred House, Chanaka Amaratunga, Christopher Ponniah, Colombo, Lionel Wendt Theatre, Lucien de Zoysa, Michelle Leembruggen, Mother Courage, Richard de Zoysa, Rohan Hapugalle, SLECIC, Waiting for Godot, Winston Serasinghe

The new restaurants in Colombo were quite expensive so visiting them could be only an occasional pastime on an Asst Lecturer’s salary. The nightclubs which the bright young things of Colombo had begun to frequent were of course even more expensive, and in any case I found them loud and distastefully smoky. The mainstay of my social life then, at least as far as going out went, was the Arts Centre Club, above the Lionel Wendt Theatre, where Richard invariably turned up each night.

Bridging Connections – Property

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Bridging Connections, On Moving into a Rented House, Parakrama Kodituwakku, Passion for Furniture, Poetry, Property, R Sivanandan, To My Son His Inheritance, Wickramasena Jayasekera

Poetry does not often deal with property. In itself, I suppose, this does not seem a very poetic subject. And the three poems brought together here are really about feelings, not property. The juxtaposition may also seem facile, in that the feelings depicted are very different in character. Still, it is interesting to explore the use made of houses and furniture to convey essential aspects of the Sri Lankan experience.

Bridging Connections – Feelings of Alienation

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A Day In The New World, Alienation, Appaalthamil, Bridging Connections, Christopher Francis, Emigration, Frozen State, Jean Arasanayagam, Ki.Pi. Aravinthan, Memory Island, Parvathi Arasanayagam, Poetry, Sunil Govinnage

Understandably enough, given the constant emigration from this country over the last few decades, a constant theme in poetry by Sri Lankans has been the plight of the exile. Given the vast numbers of Tamils who have left, this is obviously more common in Tamil writers, and the forthcoming collection will reflect this. I will start here however with a poem by a Sinhalese writer now in Australia, Sunil Govinnage. The poem comes from a collection called ‘Memory Island’, which in itself suggests the relation to his roots of the writer, who has also worked in Thailand. He was previously at the Institute of Fundamental Studies in Kandy, and has taught at Notre Dame University in Perth, where he works now for the Western Australian Civil Service.