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LUMS Faculty, Yasmeen Hameed Publishes Book
September 03, 2012
LUMS faculty, Yasmeen Hameed’s fifth collection of poetry in Urdu, Bē Samar Pēṛoṅ Kī Khvāhish has been published by Sang-e Meel, Lahore. Ms Hameed is Visiting Faculty at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and Coordinator, Gurmani Centre for Languages and Literature at LUMS.
The poems in the book have been written over a period of ten years, sometimes with long gaps in between. Discussing her inspiration behind the book, Ms Hameed said, “Poetry is different from prose. Most collections of poetry do not follow a single theme. The poems in this book are on varied themes, ranging from objective to very subjective pieces, each inspired by a new situation, a new happening, a new mood and sometimes nothing tangible or visible. Complicated, isn’t it? But so is the creative process.”
Talking about the present status of Urdu and how Urdu readership can be improved she said, “I have dealt with this question in my brief introductory essay in the book. I think this problem is directly linked to a lack of quality education at the school level in the public sector and a lack of exposure to good Urdu texts and very little importance given to the language in the more privileged private sector schools. Reading habits and reading preferences develop early in life and the kind of environment at that time determines what might happen in later years.”
“I hope to keep writing. I have already written a few poems after this book got published. I am doing other things as well. My compilation of essays on Faiz is under print at Oxford and I have translated poetry from South Asian languages into Urdu. These are 140 poems. I am still working on them and hope to complete this work in the coming year,” disclosed Ms Hameed about her future plans.
Her earlier collections are Pas-e Ᾱ’inā (1988), Hisār-e Bē Dar-o Dīvār (1991), Ᾱdhā Din Aur Ᾱdhī Rāt (1996) and Fanā Bhī Ēk Sarāb (2001). These four books were collectively published as Dūsrī Zindagī in 2007. Her third collection won the National Allama Muhammad Iqbal Award for best book of poetry of the year and the fourth collection won the Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi Award for best collection of the year.
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