Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Faiz Ahmed Faiz 

     Faiz Ahmed Faiz is well known in the middle east for his Urdu poetry. His dad was a distinguished lawyer and part of an exclusive literary group. Two years after Faiz was born, his father died. Because his father had been a wealthy landowner, and because Faiz was naturally gifted, He received quality education and even accomplished two master's degrees by the end of his schooling. Even though his poetry took a backseat during these years, it began to emerge more clearly once Faiz was out of college. At first, he wrote mainly about beauty and love, two common but interesting topics. Later, when Faiz was in jail, and even beforehand, his poetry began to take on both new depth and a bleak shadow. The reason for this was both because of Faiz's growth in his thoughts and ideology, but also because of his experience in prison. 

      In much of Faiz's poetry, there seems to be a conflict between Faiz's need for love and his need to make a difference in the world. One poem which illustrates this well is the poem: "My love, do not ask from me the love we shared before". Here is one stanza in the poem that illustrates this concept well:

               beauty still allures, but
              what can I do?
              There are sorrows in this world
              beyond the pleasures of love.

      Here, Faiz expresses his longing for a certain woman, but he also recognizes a need in the world that needs to be fulfilled. The strange thing about Faiz's poetry is how he writes of love and women of an unambiguous nature often, and yet he is married. It is possible that he was either involved with women outside his marriage, in love with the idea of love, or indirectly writing about Alys, his wife. For whatever reason, it is clear that Faiz cherished the idea of women and romance. In fact, in an interview, Faiz interpreted the most important concept of Urdu poetry to be love. 

      Although poetry is what Faiz was best known for and was certainly his area of concentration, Faiz was also an editor for many newspapers, a teacher at two different colleges, a soldier in the British Indian Army, a writer of newspapers, a principal at a college, and many other things. He was a varied man with a busy life. Despite the many things Faiz was involved in throughout his life, he was not an organized man. He would begin to be involved in one thing then become distracted and never return to that one thing. It makes sense that he was like this because he was an artist and artists are often(not always) disorganized. Thee were certain jobs Faiz turned down, however, due to political reasons. For the same reasons, he also exiled himself from his homeland at certain points. 

      I enjoyed Faiz' poetry, or at least that which was accessible to me. It is hard to really get a feel for it, however, because a small percentage of his poetry has been translated to English and a poem translated is not the same poem as the original. The poems which I did read had a nice rolling rhythm and were clearly full of hidden messages. One such poem is this one:

               But the heart and the eye are impervious     
               to who comes, and when, or who leaves. 
               They are far away, galloping home, 
               hands holding tight to the oceanís mane, 
               shoulders crushed under their burden - 
               fears, questions, forebodings. 
      This poem has a beautiful rollicking quality about it, and yet it is very hard to interpret. Faiz is skilled at doing this within his poems and leaving the reader feeling they've read something with weight, but something that will take some work to unpack.