UPL organises Book Talk highlighting the essence of Bengali poets writing in English

A talk on The Collected Poems of Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy and Kaiser Haq's poetry collection Published in the Streets of Dhaka took place on December 22, Friday, at University Press Limited (UPL) Head Office located in Dhaka's Green Road area.

Hasan Shahid Suhrawardy's opus should have been familiar to any Bangali interested in the vibrant voice of a literary trailblazer from our land. In his time, he crossed the world, collecting insights and revelations born of his fascinating experiences, and then setting them down in English verse. He was the first from the subcontinent to do so. And yet, he is unknown to many. The Collected Poems of Shahid Suhrawardy is an effort to remedy that, organisers of the event pointed out.

This collection of verses from Suhrawardy was edited by the inimitable poet, translator, critic, and academic Kaiser Haq, whose own collection of poems, Published in the Streets of Dhaka, was in the lineup for Friday's Book Talk. The discussion was steered by Zafar Sobhan, editor of Dhaka Tribune.

Bold, humorous, and striking, Kaiser Haq's poetry has long struck a chord with a niche of readers of English verse, providing a form of verve and wit that one might find to be uniquely Bangali in essence. 

In this discussion, a throughline was drawn from the early 20th century to the early 21st.

UPL welcomed attendees to the event in the essence of poetry that came from two Bangali souls in the English tongue.