Shaji A Joseph, popularly known as S A Joseph, is an author with much experience and high credentials. His recent book, An Apology for Shakespeare which is “a defence of poetry after Sidney’s and Shelley’s” has been received very well among the criticism and literary fraternity in India. S A Joseph’s work reveals his deep devotion to poetry as well as his deep vision which sees poetry as something above the petty worldly things in the world.
Born in 1971, S A Joseph belongs to Kerala. He has been active in the academic field for very long now. Having a source of inspiration in his Guru, Nitya Chatanya Yati, who was a great philosopher and visionary, he has accumulated immense experience in management and teaching. S A Joseph has worked with many schools and colleges in his long career and always believes in the positive approach. According to him:
“Achievers in life are not born accidentally but they are made by the educators and mentors with proper planning and care.”
His understanding of poetry is very deep when it comes to his poetic mind. S A Joseph believes in the power of poetry and also the results which it can render. You can find his ideas and vision embedded when you go through his latest work An Apology for Shakespeare which is a wonderful poetry collection. He says:
“My vision is to make the generation aware that Poetry is very important in our life. Where politics and religion fail to bring up a genuine society, Poetry does it. The world stands still in need of liberation from so many evil elements and only Poetry is capable of liberating human beings from the clutches of all evil elements.”
Indeed, what he says is true. His poems do it even better. The idea behind the title of the book is that S A Joseph, the author, uses Shakespeare’s name to connote poetry because nothing could have done it better!
S A Joseph believes that classics must be given importance and preference when it comes to learning in life. He writes in his preface to the work An Apology for Shakespeare:
“More importance is to be given to learning classics. They help us to learn more about ourselves, our life, death and life after death.”
The power of the poetry by Shaji A Joseph is apparently evident in the pages of his book. He writes not only with a vigour of those classics whom he tries to defend but also with a vision and a conviction. His poetry is loud and bold and at the same time, loaded with all that we need in beautiful poetry!
“When he was rejected by the world
So pitifully,
He boldly left the world.”
Truly, poets like him are the need of the hour if we have to see a reemergence of poetry around us! We will keep you updated about more of his works as they appear.
