Esmail Khoi: The Poet as Observer and Creative Explorer

Abstract

This article focuses on how Esmail Hkoi poetically inhabits the world of his poetry as an observer and visionary explorer. Its aim is to make manifest how he engages his readers in reciprocal poetic dialogues to communicate his unique vision of the lived world. The dialogic function of his poetry is then examined as the ground of emergence of an experiential poetic mode of knowledge of the human condition. The article also considers Khoi's poetry as work done in the fields of language, alchemically transmuting everyday language of communication into poetic discourse. Finally, an analysis of his poem “To the Aged Mulberry Branch” explicates how Khoi can create a world of imagination whole and entire unto itself by his minimalist approach to poetry.