<i>Kali O Kolom: Bhadro</i> 1415-August 2008 <br><i>Kobita Shonkha</i> - (Poetry Issue)

This special poetry issue of Kali O Kolom reportedly has gone into its second printing, with reader demand outstripping supply the first time around. This one's a keeper.
Going through its pages, it is easy to understand why. A great deal of care has gone into its planning and execution. It contains seven essays dealing with Bangladeshi (including the poems being produced by the Bengalis of the then East Pakistan) poetry through the 1950s till Liberation and beyond into the 1990s. Though the division of such an inherently chaotic profusion of poetry, poets, poetic movements, and poems of the former East Bengal and present-day Bangladesh into decades might seem overly neat and artificial to some, yet it is these particular essays that are comparatively the better ones. So while Mahbubul Haq's 'Bangladesher Kobita: Ponchasher Doshok', Abid Anwar's 'Shaater Doshoker Kobita'r Andhaar and Adhyay', and Mamun Mostofa's 'Bangladesher Kobita: Shottur Thaykay Nobboui' make for informative and at times fascinating reads (Abid Anwar, for example, goes into meter and language analysis in a way that is rare in Bangladeshi poetry criticism, which continues to rely on a rhetorical and descriptive gush), it is the other general essays that do not quite give good value for their money. The one exception here is the last essay, 'Muktijoddha and Kobita' by Rafiqullah Khan, tackling its theme with sense and energy. There is a charming interview with senior poet Abul Hosain in his Dhanmondi house by Shouvik Reza, which then segues marvelously into the first poem in the volume, written by Abul Husain himself, 'Esho Brishti, Esho'. It is a poem that effortlessly displays the sheer musical--partly deriving from onomatopoeia and rhyming phrases--of the Bengali language. There are individual articles on Shamsur Rahman (indeed it feels strange to open such a volume of poetry and not find one of his poems there!), Al Mahmud, Syed Shamsul Haq (with a fine riff on his sonnet sequence Poranayr Gohiner Bhitor), and Shahid Quadri, who is beginning to re-emerge into a limited public life via Kali O Kolom.
But between these pages of prose lies the real treasure trove of poems, beginning with seniors such as Zillur Rahman Siddiqui, Alokeranjan Dasgupta, Fazle Shahabuddin, Shamsul Haq, Sunil Gangapadhya, etc., through to those younger to them to then finish with the current crop of poets. It is a most satisfying arrangement, leading the reader on a long, involved, semi-magical cobble-stoned tour-- where the street's air, houses, people and smells are directly felt and seen--on the changes in poetic themes, preoccupations, styles, language, diction, form from the fifties to the present. There is subtle criticism of the times in Shamsul Haq's Ekhon Deen E Rokom, in Shahid Quadri's poem about the murder of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, while Ruby Rahman's 'Tappi-Mara Kobita' has both lightness and verve. There is Mahadev Saha, and Sajjad Kadir's fine 'Tomra' casting a sardonic eye over holier-than-thou development and human rights folks, followed by Musharraf Karim, Kajal Bandhopadhyay, Shamim Azad, Bishwajit Chowdhury, Sheul Manjoor, Shelley Naz, Kajal Shahnawaj, Rizwanul Islam Rudra. And more, many more. In these pages there is rain, there is soul, there are also soulless cities waiting for rain. If there is one criticism to be made, it is that while major male poets of Kolkata are represented, women poets like Mullika Sengupta are absent.
There are noticeable differences between generations. Reading the newest of the poets, one is struck by the short lines, and the deliberately cooler tone, an anti-romantic (or at least in its old-fashioned Bengali sense) beat. Their poems describe overbridges, cell phones text messaging, cheese on pizzas, use an unprecedented number of English words (Fuad Hasan's poem is title, though written out in Bengali, 'A Journey by Ambulance', as is Saifullah Mohammed Dulal's 'Facebook'), tend to stick to everyday life, computer passwords, a breezier sense of being, a lighter angst. There are prose poems, too. Being Bengalis, clouds inevitably show up in their poems too, though as simply 'megh', not as 'meghmala', the latter a word that seems to be overused by the older, more alankar- and upama-prone poets. And once in a very rare while, even in this X generation of poets, something resembling old-fashioned rage breaks through, as in Badray Munir's 'Brishti Houk', a paen to darkness and wet gloom:
The choice of Qayuum Chowdhury for the artwork on the pages is an inspired one. The cover art, 'Burning Desire' (speaking volumes about Bengali notions of what poetry ought to be about!) is by Monirul Islam.

Farhad Ahmed is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star literature page.