Mohammad Shafiqul Islam

Republic of the dead

As if playing a game of chess / Still the world waits for the next dawn

2w ago

Jabar bela fele jeo ekti khopar phul

Leave a flower from your bun when you depart, my love.

2m ago

Swapane eshechilo mridubhashini

Translated by Mohammad Shafiqul Islam

2m ago

Mor ghumo ghore ele monohar

In my deep sleep, you came, my love—

5m ago

We’re still alive

We’re still alive/ but they wanted to die a natural death

11m ago

Bombardment

What’s life if a sense of darkness/ doesn’t connect night to sunlight

1y ago

Lamp of grief

Nothing is meaningless if speech and silence  fill void, flowing in the same force, and no one blocks the road to dreaming.

1y ago

Three Songs: Kazi Nazrul Islam

Like a wounded bird, my songs/ tumble down at your feet, my love.

1y ago
February 12, 2022
February 12, 2022

Before the Last Breath

After so many years, more than a decade or so, when you pass my home, don’t forget to take a look at the humble roof of haystack and wattle if not the humble me waiting to have a look at your eyes for an epoch.

June 5, 2021
June 5, 2021

Cartography

The map I dream drawing every day, Bangladesh, is yours.

September 12, 2020
September 12, 2020

The Art of Weaving Time

Maybe you forgot, or dementia possessed you before our union—how else could you keep aloof from your soul, your other soul, your eupnoea?

June 25, 2020
June 25, 2020

An intellectual at his finest

Aaj O Agamikaal: Nirbachito Shakkhatkar (Daily Star Books, 2020) by Professor Serajul Islam Choudhury and edited by Emran Mahfuz, a young

May 30, 2020
May 30, 2020

The pandemic in poetry

"The virus is slowing us down to the speed of poetry.” – Billy Collins

January 4, 2020
January 4, 2020

A Poetry Evening at Oxford

Among the contemporary poetic voices, the name of Ilya Kaminsky shines bright. An American-Ukranian poet, Kaminsky has already earned name and critical acclaim, publishing two collections of poetry, which have received rave reviews in front-ranking literary journals and newspapers. His latest collection is Deaf Republic (2019), whereas the first collection is titled Dancing in Odessa (2004).

July 11, 2019
July 11, 2019

Literature, kerosene and Professor Mahmood

The moment the news of students pouring kerosene on a professor came to my attention, I instantly thought it must be fake news. Either that or I was hallucinating. Because the thought of pouring kerosene on a professor and trying to light him on fire—an attempt to murder—is indeed shocking.

June 30, 2017
June 30, 2017

JIMMY, THE DOG

I want to write a poem about a dog though I've already written some poems that feature dogs. Sometimes I want

February 27, 2017
February 27, 2017

Search for Self

Jhumpa Lahiri, a well-known voice of diasporic literature and very popular among the contemporary writers of world

January 28, 2017
January 28, 2017

QUIET BY THE NAF

Schools are burnt, houses torched

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