Daily Times

Legendary poetess Parveen Shakir remembered on her 69th birth anniversary across the country on Wednesday.

Parveen Shakir was a legendary female poet who started poetry in her childhood. Parveen Shakir was the first female poetess who expressed emotions and feelings of a young girl in a realistic manner.

Spontaneity in expression was the hallmark of her poetry that mesmerised the young lot especially girls.

Parveen Shakir started writing at a young age, penning both prose and poetry, and contributing columns in Urdu newspapers, and few articles in English dailies.

She was highly educated with two Master’s degrees, one in English Literature and one in Linguistics. She also held a PhD and another Master’s degree in Bank Administration.

Her work was often based on romanticism, exploring the concepts of love, beauty and their contradictions, and heavily integrated the use of metaphors, similes and personifications.

Her famous poetry books include Khushbu, Sad-Barg, Khud kalaami and Inkar.

In 1976, Parveen Shakir published her first volume of poetry Khushbu to great acclaim. She was awarded one of the highest honours of Pakistan the Pride of Performance for her outstanding contributions to literature.

She subsequently published other volumes of poetry including Sad-barg in 1980 Khud Kalami and Inkar in 1990.

These poetry books are collected in Mah-e-Tamam. She also published a collection of her newspaper columns, titled Gosha-e-Chashm, Kaf-e-Aina was released posthumously with works from her diaries and journals.

On December 26, 1994, Shakir’s car collided with a bus while she was on her way to work in Islamabad.

The accident resulted in her death, a great loss to the Urdu poetry world. The road on which the accident took place is named after her.