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    Selected Daud Kamal Poems and Afterword PDF

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    Sana Nadeem
    Daud Kamal was a Pakistani poet who taught English literature at Peshawar University for nearly 30 years. The document shares 4 poems by Kamal that convey a sense of loss and displacement in the face of violence. It also provides biographical information on Kamal, noting he published original poems in English as well as translations of Urdu poets into English. Kamal explored themes of violence, cultural erasure, and spiritual displacement through his poetic works.

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    Selected Daud Kamal Poems and Afterword PDF

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    Sana Nadeem
    2K views5 pages
    Daud Kamal was a Pakistani poet who taught English literature at Peshawar University for nearly 30 years. The document shares 4 poems by Kamal that convey a sense of loss and displacement in the face of violence. It also provides biographical information on Kamal, noting he published original poems in English as well as translations of Urdu poets into English. Kamal explored themes of violence, cultural erasure, and spiritual displacement through his poetic works.

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    Daud Kamal was a Pakistani poet who taught English literature at Peshawar University for nearly 30 years. The document shares 4 poems by Kamal that convey a sense of loss and displacement in the face of violence. It also provides biographical information on Kamal, noting he published original poems in English as well as translations of Urdu poets into English. Kamal explored themes of violence, cultural erasure, and spiritual displacement through his poetic works.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    2K views5 pages

    Selected Daud Kamal Poems and Afterword PDF

    Uploaded by

    Sana Nadeem
    Daud Kamal was a Pakistani poet who taught English literature at Peshawar University for nearly 30 years. The document shares 4 poems by Kamal that convey a sense of loss and displacement in the face of violence. It also provides biographical information on Kamal, noting he published original poems in English as well as translations of Urdu poets into English. Kamal explored themes of violence, cultural erasure, and spiritual displacement through his poetic works.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    POEMS BY DAUD KAMAL

    THE REBEL

    They
    stood him up
    against an orchard wall
    and shot him
    at dawn.

    Pandemonium of crows
    and then
    the empty horizon.

    Hundreds of miles away


    his mother
    kneels in prayer –
    in ignorance –
    the ignorance of prayer.

    Wheat ear on the stubble –


    the blind earth
    must be fed.
    ANNIVERSARY

    Cascading back
    to the source
    over a difficult terrain
    but the heart remembers.
    Wet stones
    conscious of their lineage –
    the chopped-up moon
    in paddy-fields.
    A fierce love has blurred my sight
    and burnt the lines off
    the palms of my hands.
    I have drunk acrid milk.
    I have heard the sound of clogs
    in an ancient ruin.
    How can the mind contend
    with all this chaos –
    this endless repetition
    of thwarted lives?
    Shelley asserts
    that the deep truth
    is imageless.
    An invisible bird
    perches on my shoulder
    and speaks to me
    in a language
    I do not understand.
    Ashes and dust.
    I am only a word-smith.
    KINGFISHER

    April
    is the kingfisher’s beak
    which pierces
    the river’s glad torment.
    Is this an image
    of our love?
    Carnage
    in the rose-valleys
    under the first light
    of our wounds.

    Clouds
    detach themselves
    from disconsolate trees.
    The future
    curves on another shore.
    Tongues of water
    cradle our startled dreams.
    Moss-grown stepping-stones.
    The stars burn fiercely.
    They tell us what we are.
    WINTER RAIN

    Mist
    suspended over a deep void:
    translucent bridge
    sculpted in fire –
    in rock-crystal.
    Memory,
    someone says,
    is a forest of mirrors.
    Is this true?
    Stone parapets
    eroded by time.

    Is death
    the only exit?
    The moon thaws
    before your loveliness:
    you are the breath of violets –
    The vivacity
    of a snow-fed stream.
    Nightbound travelers –
    you and me –
    and this winter rain.
    Daud Kamal (1935-1987), Pakistan’s most accomplished poet, taught English

    literature at Peshawar University for nearly three decades. His poems, which are in

    English, convey a sense of loss and spiritual displacement in the face of violence and

    cultural erasure. Kamal’s first book, Reverberations (1970), consists of translations of the

    classical Urdu poet, Ghalib. His original poems in English appeared in Recognitions

    (1979), A Remote Beginning (1985), and in such posthumous volumes as Rivermist


    (1992), Before The Carnations Wither (1995) and A Selection of Verse (1997). Kamal’s

    translations of the Urdu poets Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi, Munir Niazi

    and Ahmed Faraz appeared in Four contemporary poets (1992).

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