Thematic Study on A.K.Ramanujan's Poetry

Introduction: A.K.Ramanujan is one of the interesting poets in the 20th century Indian English literature. His timeline is between 1929 and 1994. His poetry attained its popularity in 1960s. He is considered as the voice of modern India, though he shows his deep root in Indian tradition and culture. Among his contemporaries A.K.Ramanujan seems grave and sincere due to variety of themes prevailed in his poetry. He is not only a poet but also the greatest translator. He is famous for his translations rather than other creative works.
His Major Works: An astonished classic Ramanujan has written numerous poems. They were gathered and put in four volumes under one title The Collected Poems. Of these four volumes The Striders, Relations, and Second Sight were published in his life time. His fourth collection The Black Hen was published after his life time in 1995. He is a transnational figure and trans-disciplinary scholar. His academic research ranged across five languages: Tamil, Kannada, English, Telugu and Sanskrit. His major translation works are The Interior Landscapes: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology, Speaking of Shiva and Hymns for the Drowning.
Themes in his Poetry: His Collected poems represents the rich sensitivity, intellectual rigour and feeling. Most of his poems though intensely personal, have a universal dimension of their own. The main themes of his poetry are Indian culture and tradition, family and relations, past memories, art, love, despair, death, myth, hybridism, etc.,. They are full of humour, irony, paradox and sudden reversals. He is really a poet of memory, commotion, childhood impressions, fear, sorrow, common sufferings and conflicts.
Art as a Theme: The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting and sculpture is known as ‘art’. Poetry and other works produced by such skill and imagination can be come under this