URDU POET SHAHARYAAR ON " POETRY "

                                                                           

                                                                                      

                                                         ( Poet Shaharyaar )                                                                                

“SHAHARYAAR ON POETRY ”

In an Interview to Rakhshanda Jalil , Urdu Poet Sharahyaar ( 1936-2012 ) said :

“Communication is all. A poet must reach the greatest number of people. Some of his words may be clothed in myth and metaphor, but they must eventually be realised by his readers. If his images are too oblique, if his symbols too dense, then, no matter how exquisitely beautiful his words or how well-crafted his syntax, he is failing as a poet.”

“ Poetry, must necessarily have an element of music. Without music there can be no poetry and like music, poetry too must follow some rules and principles. Above all, like music, poetry must have rigour. While it is easy to say that poetry, and music, come naturally to those who are gifted, even the gifted must follow certain rules and regulations if they are to be true to their gift.”

”Good poetry can indeed make the reader feel that ‘I could have said this’ or ‘This is exactly how I feel’. And when that threshold is reached, Shahryar believed, the real aesthetic experience happens, which is essentially a mystical communication between the writer and the reader or the reciter and the listener.”

“Waqt teri yeh ada mai aaj tak samjha nahin

Meri duniya kyon badal di, mujh ko kyon badla nahin”

( Shaharyaar )

“Time, I have never ever understood this trait of yours

Why have you changed my world, but not changed me”

( Autar Mota )

PS

In another Interview to some other person , Shaharyaar said :

(1)

" I can not write Mushaiara specific Poetry though many people consider this type of poetry as very good poetry . I can’t somehow compromise with films where a poet is made to write something that is unwanted or looks like a thrust . That is why I did not live in Mumbai. “

Umeed se kam chashm e Khareedar mein aaye 

Hum Log Zaraa Deir se bazaar mein Aaye..

“ Poets must say only what they feel . Not more not less. If they understand this fundamental logic , their verses shall always be newer and newer . And newer things are well received by world .“

(3)

Shaharyaar taught Urdu fiction in AMU , from where he retired as Head of the Urdu Department . He never taught poetry in the university as he believed poetry could never be taught...

(4)

Tonight the night presented me

With a new dilemma

It emptied the basin of my eye

Of all sleep

And filled it with tears

Then, it whispered in my ear:

‘I have absolved you of all sin

And set you free, forever.

‘Go, wherever you wish

Sleep, or stay awake

The doorway of dreams is closed for you.’

( Shaharyaar .. Translation from Urdu by Rakhshanda Jalil )

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