Last night I dreamed - Analysis

Desmond L Kharmawphlang is a poet and folklorist. He has published books of poetry and collections of theoretical essays on folkloristics pertaining to North East India. He is on the Executive Board of the Belief Narrative Network of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research and is the Vice President of the Indian Folklore Congress. He lives in Shillong, Meghalaya where he is Professor and Head at the Department of Cultural and Creative Studies of the North-Eastern Hill University, where he teaches folkloristics. 

In the poem “Last night I dreamed” the poet, folklorist Desmond. L. Kharmawphlang delineates the poetic tradition of North-East literature. The history and evolution of north-east poetic tradition is explained by the poet. As a folklorist, Desmond attempts to give the chronology of events which maketh the evolution possible. The evolution of north-east literature from oral tradition to written is described in an emblematic way which makes the poem intricate to comprehend. The dream can also be taken as a journey which represents the process of development.

The poem begins with the line “Last night I dreamed” which indicates narrator’s subjective narration which is centred on his/her development. Assuming the narrator as ‘north-east poetic tradition’ and the development as the evolution of the tradition yield to new disentangled meaning. The presupposition, ‘the poem as the speaker’, unravels the complication. The narrator articulates that s/he dreams that s/he was a sperm in the womb of folklore which designates the beginning phase of the development. Comparing the beginning of the tradition with biological development makes sense. And the word “sperm” denotes the yet to develop stage of the poetry.

The second stanza reveals that the oral stage where s/he is born as a mere idea born into a naked nation, which infers the crude, undeveloped form of the oral poetry. It further more indicates the stage in which the poetry is needed to be shaped. The phrases “to be forged in fire” and “Deft fingers plucked me” discloses the shaping process which helped the development of the form. The phrase “crawled on all fours” compares the poetry with the new born child which is yet to grow. Thus in the first three stanzas, the poet explains the beginning stage of poetic tradition.   

The fourth stanza gives an image which is figurative. The poetry “winters into a silken Cocoon” later it is spun into thread in looms, which can be taken as a process which makes something out of nothing. The analogy of becoming thread from cocoon exactly describes the development of tradition. Finally the as the poet suggests It becomes folktale. As a professor of Cultural studies and folklore, the poet reveals his intention to safeguard the tradition.8

The line, “Deft fingers plucked me and grafted my flesh on the tongue of experience” denotes the writers who shaped the form with their experience. The history is outlined as the poetry becomes proverb and later riddle. The evolution from folktale to proverb and from proverb to riddle makes the clear chain of events which can be interpreted as the history of poetic tradition. The oral poetry tends to be in the womb of poetry in the next birth.