Herald Exclusive: Voices in verse

Published January 25, 2015
Audience at the Lahore Literature Festival (LLF) — Photo Courtesy LLF
Audience at the Lahore Literature Festival (LLF) — Photo Courtesy LLF

The dimensions of a literary landscape are usually gauged by how active its publication industry is. If one were to gauge the state of Pakistani poetry in English in 2014 on that basis alone, it would seem that the genre made a poor showing. Although the Pakistan Academy of Letters released its annual anthology, which included some poetry in English, there was no dedicated anthology for Pakistani poetry in English.

However, scratch beneath the surface, and a far more exciting picture emerges — full of developing potential and rich possibilities.

The outgoing year saw a solid representation of indigenous English language poetry at the country’s three biggest literature festivals, for which, panellists were flown in from across the country and, indeed, the world. In early February, the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) hosted a session titled Voices, Older and Younger: Poetry in English, featuring readings by a diverse array of poets: Salman Tarik Kureshi, Ilona Yusuf, Shireen Haroun, Bilal Hamid, Moeen Faruqi and Farida Faizullah. It was an intimate gathering that allowed poets to connect well with the audience. But more significantly, the small room was packed to capacity, indicating a genuine interest by festival-goers. It will be interesting to see if KLF allocates more space to sessions on English poetry in the future.

Bina Shah, Laurent Gayer, Aquila Ismail and Steve Inskeep speak at Karachi Literature Festival 2013.
Bina Shah, Laurent Gayer, Aquila Ismail and Steve Inskeep speak at Karachi Literature Festival 2013.

Last year’s Lahore Literary Festival (LLF), held in the third week of February, also featured a cleverly titled Angrezi mushaira, where poets Athar Tahir, Bushra Naqi, Yusuf, Jocelyn Ortt Saeed and Bangladeshi poet Sadaf Saaz recited from their work. This was the last appearance at a major literary event by Saeed, who passed away in September 2014 and will be greatly missed by her friends and peers from the community of poets.

It could be said that the most ambitious panel discussion on English language poetry was hosted at the Islamabad Literature Festival (ILF). Titled Politics, History and Mythology in South Asian English Poetry, the panel boasted a formidable line-up with Yusuf, Waqas Khwaja, Harris Khalique and Ejaz Rahim (and Saaz representing Bangladesh), but the topic was much too large to be done justice to in such a short time span. The most memorable part of the session was poet, translator and editor Waqas Khwaja sparking a spirited discussion on accessibility and rootedness in English language poetry, particularly translations.

The last few years have seen a markedly raised profile for literature in Pakistan via literature festivals, and 2014 began to show signs of a real spillover effect in universities. English poetry made a respectable showing at these events. Iqra University in Karachi hosted its own literature festival in March 2014, with a multilingual mushaira as part of its programme. The English poetry at this mushaira had a long way to go in terms of technique and finesse, but the political awareness and social conscience of the poets (both in English and Urdu) was incredible, underscoring the fact that any long-term revival of literature requires a strong connection to institutions of higher education. In November 2014, the Forman Christian College in Lahore organised a literary week with a dedicated discussion on English poetry in Pakistan, and hosted two workshops for new poets, one led by poet Mina Malik and the second by poet and editor Hera Naguib.

Desi Writer's Lounge at the Creative Karachi Festival held at Alliance Fracaise in December 2014 — Photo Courtesy: Dawn
Desi Writer's Lounge at the Creative Karachi Festival held at Alliance Fracaise in December 2014 — Photo Courtesy: Dawn

The year 2014 was generally very good for poetry education in Pakistan, and it is worth highlighting here that there is a cadre of contemporary poets writing in English who are actively giving back. Locally, a portion of the credit for this goes to the Beaconhouse National University (BNU), which has been investing in developing a new generation of English-language poets, over the last few years (Naguib, mentioned earlier, is one of them).There has also been exciting work done by Spoken Stage in Karachi, which has been taking a portable booth to schools and public events to encourage members of the public to step up and recite, mostly in English.

In August last year, Yusuf and two other Pakistani women poets – Noorulain Noor and Zakia Rubab Khwaja – led a ten-week online course on poetic elements, themes and form for emerging poets, on behalf of Desi Writers’ Lounge (DWL). Just prior to that, Zakia Rubab Khwaja had conducted a poetry workshop in Islamabad in collaboration with the Foundation for Arts, Culture and Education. In September 2014, poets Naguib and Momina Mela conducted a workshop in Lahore, designed specifically for Pakistani poets writing in English, again on behalf of the DWL. The three-weekend workshop was designed keeping in mind the challenges of cultural representation and language faced by young poets, and received excellent feedback from the participants.

A group of young students watches a video of the acclaimed poet Zehra Nigah at the Umang Poetry stall at Karachi Literature Festival — Photo Courtesy: Umang Poetry
A group of young students watches a video of the acclaimed poet Zehra Nigah at the Umang Poetry stall at Karachi Literature Festival — Photo Courtesy: Umang Poetry

One of the instructional texts used in the above workshop was Zulfikar Ghose’s excellent column, Advice to a Young Poet, published in Dawn in June 2014, in which he said (in true Ghose style): “Actually, what you have to say is of little importance since essentially what you have to say has been said by many poets before you. What you have to say becomes interesting, and perhaps important, if you create an arresting form in which to say it ... No one is born with the gift of originality; you create the conditions of becoming original through the sheer hard work of absorbing all that the tradition has accomplished before you” — valuable advice that informed the way the workshop was structured, and an excellent example of how the new generation of Pakistani poets continues to learn from the wisdom of its elders.

All of this augers well for the future of English-language poetry in Pakistan. This sense of potential was perhaps best reflected by the establishment of Pakistan’s first centre for English writing at the Kinnaird College, Lahore, in late 2014. Led by Athar Tahir, the International Centre for Pakistani Writing in English (ICPWE) will be formally launched in March 2015, but is already eliciting enormous support from local poets. The centre has acquired early photographs and books by the late Daud Kamal, and a huge collection of books, unpublished material, manuscripts and visual images from the Taufiq Rafat Foundation, with the promise of another massive donation of publications and archival material by Ghose. Following a generous gift of material by Kaleem Omar’s family in Karachi, the ICPWE now has access to his never-before collected poems from various anthologies and newspapers, which it is compiling in one volume, slated for release in 2015.

Visitors at the Creative Karachi Festival interact with a portable booth set up by Spoke Stage — Photo Courtesy: Spoken Stage
Visitors at the Creative Karachi Festival interact with a portable booth set up by Spoke Stage — Photo Courtesy: Spoken Stage

As British poet Moneeza Alvi articulated in her January 2014 recording for BBC’s Letters to a Young Poet series, “How important is place to poetry?… I was born, as you know, in Pakistan, and my birthplace has been important to my poems.” A round-up for the year would not be complete without recognising achievements and contributions from the Pakistani diaspora in the field of poetry.

One of the country’s most accomplished and inspiring English language poets, Shadab Zeest Hashmi, who lives in the United States, won the San Diego Book Award for her book Kohl & Chalk and also the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Prize 2014. Pakistani-born British poet, Imtiaz Dharker, already recognised internationally as one of the greats, was awarded the Queen’s gold medal for poetry following the 2014 publication of her book Over the Moon.

The works of both Hashmi and Dharker were extensively referenced in Muneeza Shamsie’s stellar essay, Restoring the Narration: South Asian Anglophone Literature and Al-Andalus, published in Imagining Muslims in the Diaspora, edited by Caroline Herbert and Claire Chambers.

Recognition is also due to Waqas Khwaja, who is based in the US and who edited a special international feature on Pakistani poetry in the spring/summer issue of the Atlanta Review, featuring an exhaustive list of poems written originally in Urdu and translated into English.

In a nod to the growing business of poetry translations in English, the ILF, in February last, had Khwaja and veteran poet Fahmida Riaz on its panel titled New Words, New Worlds: The Art of Translation. The KLF, in the meantime, launched veteran poet Tanveer Anjum’s Fireworks on a Windowpane — a hardback featuring translations of her poetry from Urdu.

Kalaamé Aarifaañ by Dr Hasan Aziz
Kalaamé Aarifaañ by Dr Hasan Aziz

The year wrapped up with the release of a literary and cultural gem, and a true labour of love: Kalaamé Aarifaañ by Dr Hasan Aziz is a comprehensive compilation of Sufi and mystical poetry as embodied in the South Asian qawwali. The work’s uniqueness (and, hopefully, longevity) stems from the fact that it makes the original kalaam accessible in both Urdu and English.

Add to these developments the January 2014 launch of Umang Poetry – a digital platform that makes local language poetry available in English and other languages – it seems that the outgoing year was a good one for translations in the world of Pakistani poetry.

Clearly, there is still much to be done. A greater focus is needed, in particular, on giving Pakistani poets opportunities to be published locally. Based on the successes of 2014, however, it seems that there is plenty to look forward to in 2015.

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