Daily Times

Book: Three Contemporary Artists

Writer: Iffat Sayeed

Publisher: Department of Press and Publications, University of the Punjab

Reviewer: Sana Munir

In W H Auden’s words, a poet is a person who before anything else is passionately in love with language. The poetry showcased in Three Contemporary Artists engages every person who romances language.For it entails precision with selection of words, accuracy with the rhyme and metre, balance between showing and telling, and most importantly, bonds the reader with the poets through relativity and a commonality of experience, be it insomnia, self-actualisation, doubtfulness, soulsearching, spiritual growth, cultural connections, and the feminine identity.

Three Contemporary Artists, a book of poetry, written and compiled by Iffat Sayeed-ascholar and professor of English Literature, who has been associated with the University of the Punjab, Lahore-is a pleasuring amalgam of various aesthetic elements of poetry: the free verse, translated poems, confessional poetry, radical poems, expressionism and reflective verse. In the introduction of the book, Sayeed writes, “The poet and the artist are both keepers of society.”She quotes Plutarch, “Painting is silent poetry.”

The thesis of the book is furthered with adynamic of a young miniature artist, Heraa Khan, whose paintings are not just pure aestheticism but also thematically complementary to the premise of the book.

As suggested by the title of the book, Sayeed has combined the works of art of three contemporary creators. To begin with, Yasmeen Hameed is a renowned poet whose work in prose and poetry has earned her a Tamgha-e-Imtiaz from Government of Pakistan and the Fatima Jinnah Award from Government of Punjab. She is the founding director of the GurmaniCentre for Languages and Literature at LUMS and is author of many books, both poetry and prose.Sayeed has selected those poems from Hameed’s repertoire that explore the female identity or express a quest for soul searching, in a bid to find faults with one’s self instead of the world.

The free verse style of Hameed in Urdu is simple, while Sayeed, taking up the poetry to be translated in English language, adds some complexity to it as she experiments with syntax and order while maintaining rhyme. Sayeed’s style seems to be influenced by the likes of Robert Frost, especially when read through the devices of lyricism, dramatism and characterisation. Although the subject is Hameed’sthe treatment is that Sayeed. The reader is at liberty to contrast, compare and weigh the merit of the translation, since every work of poetry is juxtaposed alongside its mirror reflection. It is Urdu vs Englishand not Hameed vs Sayeed, forthe latter makes sure to put the former’s name atop the poem in both languages and takes a humble bow towards the end of the English translation.

There are fourteen poems shared between Yasmeen Hameed and Iffat Sayeed in the first half of the book.

Death and flora are the two kith to each

Fragrance of the flowers in the vase

Matches that of the flowers strewn on the grave

Growing out of the lap of the earth

Flowers arraigned in shops

Remain ignorant of this connect with death.

(Yasmeen Hameed, translated by Iffat Sayeed)

The poet Rizwan Akhtar’s work can be read in the second half of the book, with thirteen poems to his credit. His style is quite different from the two women. The poems by Akhtar shows him to be an expressionist who would write down a poem as soon as it would come to him due to some revelation triggered by an experience. The sheer polar stretch between the poetry of the women and Akhter is decipherable.The women write to explore their souls and minds with the help of a stoic heart. Akhtar, however, seems to be taken by a spurt of emotions, bursting out of him in a poetic form triggered by a cause-physical or psychological.

Another facet that springs at the reader while reading Akhtar’s work is his desire to stay loyal to his roots and his culture for which he inserts a profound longing, one way or the other, in his poetry. This could be why his first book of poetry collection is titledLahore, I Am Coming.

A few verses from his poem dedicated to Faiz Ahmed Faiz is one example:

From the darkness emerged ghazals

Carefully sifted, transplanted

And grew across the continent like ivy

Poetry for some is a salve; and for some it is a way to scratch the surface of their soul, delve in the process of revelation and emerge a survivor. Akhter is the former, while Sayeed and Hameed are the latter.

The third contemporary artist is Heraa Khan, a miniature painter who has a sharp presence throughout the book with her paintings whose subjects are women. Khan is a seasoned artist who has displayed her work at solo shows in Texas, New York, London and Karachi. She claims to make her own brushes and paints. Her medium includes the kalam and wasli; the brush and paper are both handcrafted, while the paints she creates for herself are stored in “tiny seashells.”

If this uniqueness was not enough, Khan uses twenty-four carat gold paper to enhance the structure and look of her paintings, some of which are showcased in the book. For fourteen of Sayeed-Hameed’s poems, and thirteen of Rizwan Akhtar’s poems, Khan has lent images of twenty-seven pieces of her art to the book, which add an oomph to the powerful imagery of the poets. Her play on colours reflects otherworldliness and dreamlike images. On one page alone, readers get to see a glimpse of the artist, busy at her minimalist desk, engrossed in work. The rest of the imagery, including the cover of the book, is all miniatures accentuating the poetic narration.

Published by the Department of Press and Publications, University of the Punjab, the book is a high-quality publication, adequately priced and a sheer delight to possess, for poetry lovers, art aficionados and book collectors.

The reviewer has authored two books of fiction, the last being Unfettered Wings: Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary Women

The writer is a freelancer