Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Indian Poetry in English

Remarks on Minor Indian Writers [1]

I don’t remember [Jehangir] Vakil’s poems very well, but they gave me the impression, I think, of much talent not amounting to genius, considerable achievement in language and rhythm but nothing that will stand out and endure. But how many can do more in a foreign language? Here the poem certainly attempts and almost achieves something fine — there are admirable lines and images — but the whole gives an impression of something constructed by the mind, a work built up by a very skilful and well-endowed intelligence.

12 September 1931