Book jackets and a poem

You know, the thing about commenting critically on cultural activities in Pakistan is that the debate immediately descends right down to the very question of existence, of being and nothingness, if you may: “Be thankful that you at least have this!”, as if the mere act of pointing out a shortcoming is going to torpedo the entire publishing industry and life as we know it and reduce it to ash and rubble. So before I comment on book covers and poems and such, here’s the disclaimer: it’s highly commendable that OUP has published Zulfikar Ghose’s poetry and essays, because in these days of financial crunches and other ailments in the publishing world, publishers of poetry and essays are rare – and in Pakistan, almost non-existent. So, OUP: We love you. Cross my heart.

Now, as I was saying, OUP has published three books by Zufikar Ghose. Two of these would be easy to spot since there is nothing on the covers. That is, nothing except for the title and author’s name. Just keep your eyes peeled for the most peculiarly revolting shades of blue and citrine. Those are the covers for you right there. Ghose’s latest book, In the Ring of Pure Light, would be even easier to find: the sunset image on the cover has been snipped right off from a PTV drama still. And, a quick note, while we are on book jackets anyway: Hello, Sang-e-Meel! Ever heard of blurbs? They have been around for about, err, a hundred years now. What’s your plan?

So Zulfikar Ghose was in town last week. He’s an accomplished poet, novelist, essayist in addition to being a Professor Emeritus of English at UT Austin. He’s not known too widely in the English-reading circles in Pakistan largely, I suspect, because he began writing in English much before 9/11 and was much too old by the time the world media got excited about the fiction boom going on in Pakistan. Besides, he’s a writer quite unaffected by trends and topics. His are, by his own admission, concerns of style and aesthetics, not so much of ‘what is written’ but of ‘how it has been executed’.

For those of you who missed his lectures at PU, BNU and LUMS, here’s a poem of his, which was also used as the title of an anthology of Pakistani writings (published by OUP, circa 1998).

A Dragonfly in the Sun

The afternoon’s light is caught

in the dragonfly’s wings where

transparency permits no reflections

and yet will not give free passage

to the sun, preserving the surface

brightness of delicate webbing

as a fragile brilliance of gleaming

points which make the wings nearly

invisible and the diagonal markings appears

as tiny irradiations of very faint

pink and blue when the dragonfly

darts up against the sun as if it

plucked colours from the air

and immediately discarded them:

this is the moment of intensity,

of the afternoon’s light gathering

in the garden in a brief flickering

of a dragonfly’s wings just above

the red blossoms of the pomegranate.

 

This is a glorious image: an afternoon’s light caught in a dragonfly’s wings. The verb caught evokes a sense of being trapped – as if light were writhing in a spider’s nest. This association is invoked again later (delicate webbing). The image of the dragonfly’s wings is then perpetuated: their transparency will not give free passage to the sun. Think about it: sun’s passage has been blocked by the wings of a tiny dragonfly – a strange and paradoxical contrast.

The portrayal of the dragonfly’s wings and their luminosity is first intensified (a fragile brilliance of gleaming points, diagonal markings appear as tiny irradiations of very faint pink and blue) and then quickly dashed: the dragonfly darts up (beautifully specific verb, that) against the sun as if it plucked colours from the air and discarded them. This is the moment of intensity, we are told: when something enormous gathers in something elementally small and is then released to dissipate in air.

This, then, is a moment of intensity—a little poem.



Bilal Tanweer is a writer and translator. He teaches creative writing at LUMS.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2011.