Poems by Faiz

The Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the most significant Urdu poets in the Indian Subcontinent, combine the older poetic modes of elegiac, romantic, and introspective, with a fresh note of Criticism of society, and the desire to change it. Faiz's poems-providing glimpses of the Indian national movement and the beginnings of the socialist movement-also have profound historical interest.

This Book focuses on the poet's four collections, which represent not only some of Faiz's finest work, but also the best in contemporary Urdu writing. Kiernan's versatile, scholarly, and at the same time lucid translation clearly brings out the qualities of Urdu Poetry for readers in English. The Urdu text appears in easy-to-read calligraphed Script with two translations, a 'literary' one that captures the essential qualities of Faiz's delicately suggestive poetry, and a 'literal' one-a scholarly transliteration-which is faithful to the original. This book will be invaluable for students and Teachers of Urdu studies, Indian literature in translation, and Comparative literature, as well as general readers interested in poetry.

Foreword
Preface

Introduction

I. Poems FROM REMONSTRANCE (NAQSH-E-FARYADI) 1943 :
1. Last Night
2. God Never Send
3. Nocturne
4. Tonight
5. A Scene
6. Love, Do not Ask
7. To the Rival
8. Solitude
9. A Few Days More
10. Dogs
11. Speak
12. Poetry's Theme
13. Our Kind
14. To a Political Leader
15. Oh Restless Heart
16. My Fellow-man, My Friend

II. POEMS FROM FINGERS OF THE WIND (DAST-E-SABA) 1952 :
17. If Ink and Pen
18. At Times
19. Freedom's Dawn (August 1947)
20. Tablet and Pen
21. Do not Ask
22. Her Fingers
23. Lyre and Flute
24. Once More
25. This Hour of Chain and Gibbet
26. At the Place of Execution
27. Whilst We Breathe
28. Among Twilight Embers
29. Two Loves
30. To Some Foreign Students
31. August 1952
32. Bury Me Under Your Pavements
33. A Prison Nightfall
34. A Prison Daybreak

III. POEMS FROM PRISON Thoughts (ZINDAN-NAMA) 1956 :
35. Oh City of Many Lights
36. The Window
37. 'Africa, Come Back'
38. This Harvest of Hopes

IV. POEMS FROM DURESS (DAST-E-TAH-E-SANG) 1965 :
39. Sinkiang
40. Loneliness
41. Evening
42. Not Enough
43. Solitary Confinement
44. Hymn of Praise
45. Like Flowing Wine
46. My Visitor
47. This Hail of Stones
48. Before you Came
49. Be Near Me
50. An Idyll

V. UNCOLLECTED POEMS :
51. Song
52. 'Black-out'
53. Heart-attack
54. Prayer

Note on the Introduction
Note on the Poem