SOURCE: Machwe, Prabhakar. “Poetry.” In Kabir, pp. 35-43. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1968.

In the following essay, Machwe argues that Kabīr's originality—evident in the language, meter, paradoxes, and ideas in his works—marks him as more than merely a “mystic poet” but a poet in the broadest and deepest sense of the word.

Search the word and know the word           Follow the word by word Word is sky and word is underworld           Word pervades the core and the cosmos Word is in speech and in hearing           Word makes the image and the form Word is Ved and word is the sound           Word is the scripture sung variously Word is the visible and the invisible           Word creates the entire universe Kabir says you test the word           Word is God, O brother! 

[Kabir Vachanavali, p. 189]

Whether mystic poetry should be judged by the same poetic norms as are applied...