From Subjective Impulses to Universal Echoes

This is how I sent a message through a social network to poet Nahid Kaiser expressing my eagerness to read her latest book: "I have been waiting for Eve Unbound with boundless curiosity." The poet was kind enough to respond rapidly by sending two complimentary books including Eve Unbound to my postal address. Eve Unbound is still hot and steamy being first published in February 2016 by The Poetry Society of India. Nahid Kaiser teaches English literature in Daffodil International University, Dhaka. 

The poet sliced the verses of Eve Unbound in six chapters presenting different phases of a woman's life. The titles of the chapters bear vivid reflections that occupied Nahid Kaiser's poetic mind regarding the ordeals people, particularly women have to live through and the variegated particles of memories that at times make us retrospective. This feature is often ticked off as "stream of consciousness", "interior monologue" or "heap of broken images" recalling venerated bards like William Butler Yeats and T. S. Eliot. 

The first poem of the book "A Welcome Note" conveys greetings to a baby girl wishing her good fortune in a world where women find it difficult to move along their self-chosen pathways. At the same time this poem reminds us of the accomplishments women are able to secure. A sarcastic theme runs through the poem revealing the fact that women who can implement their dreams are still much fewer if compared to their male counterparts. Most of the women have to compromise with stringent social norms giving up individual ambitions and desires. This poem lays emphasis on women's prolific qualities to work at corporate heights on top of looking after their families as housewives. Moreover, this poem visualizes women as a superb synthesis of beauty and boldness and these two attributes can make women invincible. 

The strangeness that flashes across the mind of an adolescent girl just entering puberty is poeticized in the poem "Anything Wrong". A girl undergoes both slow and abrupt psycho-physical changes when she becomes a "teen". Some new regulations from parents, particularly from moms, sound weird to those girls who have not yet grasped what puberty actually stands for. The expressionist mode of rhetoric applied in this poem cannot be missed when we look at the unadorned lines "What's wrong with mother? Or anything wrong with me? It may be the bloody blood flow that wet my panties, I see!" This poem is an unusual portrayal of the weariness that menstrual pang sparks off in a teenage girl's thoughts. 

"The Three Hours" illustrates the attractions and charms a bridal chamber is known for. Two minds, two bodies, two pairs of lips intermingle in a wave of unprecedented ecstasies while the moon peeps through the windowpane like a wicked voyeur. This poem has reached the dimension of paintings in my view and this poem is an answer to the question why poetry is known as artwork through rhymes. Newlywed couples remain too excited to figure out how nocturnal hours come to an end to usher in daybreak. Men and women explore one another in overwhelming warmth and depth on the first night of their wedding. The poet has stitched nuptial sensuousness in the poem quite aptly. 

"A Prayer for My Daughters" chimes with the eternal urge of a mother's heart seeking blissful days for her daughters who glance ahead for a future decked with glory and success. Life is not a bed of roses while it is a tougher combat for girls to fight. This concern works at the back of each mom's mind while looking at the innocent, tender faces of her daughter. The poet seeks blessings from God to bestow her daughters with the power of intellect as well as with humanitarian values. 

The woes of childless women have been movingly sketched in "The Barren Field." This poem exposes a bitter piece of reality happening every now and then around us. When a woman cannot give birth to children, society views her as an inauspicious and unwanted entity. This is a pathetic, wrong and illogical approach to women because childbirth is no how the only yardstick to judge a woman's worth. But men hardly face questions if they have no child. This is an unpalatable instance of social disparity prevailing in a lot of countries. It shows that Nahid Kaiser is not at all an "ivory tower" poet. Rather some of her poems are packed with social awareness and intimations. 

"To the Pilgrim" is a spiritual poem with a profound humanistic undertone. Nahid Kaiser attaches importance to the point of delighting God by giving benevolent service to mankind. Showing love and kindness to human beings is the finest virtue found in most of the people who seek divine grace. This poem bears a tacit ink of pantheistic philosophy by hinting at the concept of trying to envision God's shadow through God's creations.

A few words should be offered to look into the title of the book Eve Unbound. Eve, both theologically and allegorically, refers to women while the word "unbound" symbolizes women's perpetual leaning towards freedom, towards the dream of standing on their own feet. While concluding, it would be compatible to remark that Nahid Kaiser's poems throb with broad impulses of her personal observations though she is often found moving out of subjectivity and reaching out for a greater spectacle of social and universal countenance. 

The reviewer is Vice President, Chowdhury Philanthropic Trust, Sylhet, Email: mhasib.chy@gmail.com