Rajarshi "Tito" Mukhopadhyay

[AeonGrey]

Any of you guys heard of him? He's this kid in India. He has very severe autism, but his mother worked her ass off to get him to the point where he can focus just enough to write incredibly eloquently. It's fascinating to read what an autistic person has to say about being autistic. He wrote a book called "The Mind Tree". I haven't read it but I'm going to. Click <a href="http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0503/feature1/online_extra.html">this</a> for a lengthy article. I'll paste one of his poems too:

Men and women are puzzled by everything I do

Doctors use different terminologies to describe me

I just wonder

The thoughts are bigger than I can express

Every move that I make shows how trapped I feel

Under the continuous flow of happenings

The effect of a cause becomes the cause of another effect

And I wonder

I think about the times when I change the environment around me

With the help of my imagination

I can go places that do not exist

And they are like beautiful dreams.

But it is a world full of improbabilities

Racing towards uncertainty.

[Apollyon]

That is an appalling poem. It is bereft of imagery, resting, as it does, entirely in abstraction. The style is far too declarative: nothing is presented. The rhythm is uninspired and unbeneficial to the poem's topic, and that topic is expressed in a dull, uninspirational way, no doubt directly due to the telly style.

Seems a case of sensationalism due to his autism.

[Dragoon Knight]

I have to say that I like the last one the best.

In a place called Somewhere

There lived happiness

Somewhere was a place of Paradise

But one day from Nowhere

Came Sorrow to the place called Somewhere

Happiness asked Sorrow to leave

The place called Somewhere

Sorrow went back to Nowhere

And then occupied the hearts of people

Who are kind and compassionate

As they never refused anybody a place to stay

So if you feel the pain

Which a person who has lost his mind bears

If your heart aches when you see a tear in someone's eyes

If you are ready to accept such a person and help him

You can be sure

That you have sheltered sorrow in your heart.

After reading through the whole article, including all of the poems displayed, this poem was the only one that stuck out.  Now, I'm no judge of poetry - I'll leave that to our resident Mr. Apollinax - but what is being said is much stronger and more evident here than any of the other problems.  Made me think, anyway. :)

[Edric O]

That is an appalling poem.

So it isn't Shakespeare. Big deal. It's better than anything I (or any number of other people) could write.

[Apollyon]

Sure, but it's a hell of a lot worse than anything some hundreds of would-be writers produce. Would-be because their work is not -- in normal circumstances -- of a publishable quality. The above poem is nowhere near of a quality usually considered publishable either, and would no doubt be totally unmarketable if not for the author's back-story.

I do not care that he writes, indeed I would seek to encourage it. I find it reprehensible, however, to consider that any art is judged dependent on the artist's circumstances, since it strips it of any objectivity. Such is the case with this.

[Edric O]

I think most people were judging the artist, not his art. And they found it amazing that he is able to overcome his disability to such a degree.

Personally, I couldn't judge his art even if I wanted to. Poetry is supposed to make the reader feel something, but no poem ever seems to be able to make me feel anything. :P I much prefer the epic genre. :)

[Caid Ivik]

Poesy is older than prose. Altough today it seems to be declining  :-

[Apollyon]

I think most people were judging the artist, not his art. And they found it amazing that he is able to overcome his disability to such a degree.

Sure, so where's the problem with my saying it's an appalling poem? :P

Caid: It's sad that poetry just doesn't sell well these days; few people (broadly speaking) can be bothered to invest time into reading and re-reading a poem so as to fully understand it. This in turn has led to the success of the 'simpler' poems -- in regards to syntax and lexis -- such as those by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes. Nothing wrong with that, but a little complexity is nice at times. Poetry in itself isn't really on the decline, as such, it's more that published poetry is on the decline. Poetry as a hobby is still pretty strong if you know where to look for it. Whether the resultant work is of a quality equal to so-called professional poets is another matter altogether...

[Acriku]

I found the poems incredibly interesting not based upon their existence alone, but because they are coming from an autistic person. A glimpse of their mind is truly interesting.