Ejaz Rahim, a versatile English poet and critic is an international literary celebrity, with his
moorings in the native soil. He has some 26 books of poetry and prose to his credit. His
credentials as an eminent poet of English have been recognized at global level, the University of Toledo (US) taking the lead in holding a series of literary symposia in his honour at its campus with Ejaz Rahim as a special guest. Here are some excerpts from acclaimed critics and connoisseurs of the literary art that highlight his literary calibre and contemporaneity.
‘Ejaz Rahim is a very humble person in spite of his extraordinary academic and distinguished civil service career. His humility is the result of his search for good education and human excellence by his heroes like Iqbal to serve the cause of the eradication of poverty and ignorance. He is one of the little Davids who are fighting the many-faced Goliath in our troubled times.’ (Prof. Dr. Anwar Dil)
‘The themes of his poetry are rooted in contemporaneity as life in its kaleidoscopic enormity happens to be its warp and woof. His perception of life, far from being dreamy or
hallucinatory, is founded on humanism whose fountain lies in anthropology, philosophy,
psychology, sociology, egalitarianism and ethics — romantic love in its earthly form excluding which reflects the poet’s predilection for objectivity.’ (Syed Afsar Sajid)
‘The absence of love from our lives in Ejaz’s vision, lies at the root of all our distortions and
deprivations. He sees love in all its facets, ranging from the personal to the universal and the cosmic.’ (Nazie Rahim)
‘With him (Ejaz Rahim) poetry is a device to reveal the hidden side of life and for him the
revelation is brought home to the reader not so much by fighting the curtain that hides the
mystery of life as by illuminating the curtain itself. By so doing, we begin to see not only the curtain itself, but the image of reality that is printed upon it.’ (Col. (R) Ghulam Sarwar)
‘Ejaz Rahim has evolved his own theory of poetry. According to his thinking, a short poem is a mysterious entity which lies hidden between the fingers of the writer. A short poem flies though the air and comes into being through the writer’s pen. In his earlier writings, Ejaz Rahim had the view that the poem lies within the poet, and longs for its being while
externalizing itself in words.’ (Prof. Gilani Kamran)
‘Mr. Rahim’s poem I, Confucius reflects the vitality of Asia’s past, along with respect for
Confucian learning. Confucian teaching seeks to provide grounds for stimulating individuals
to foster in themselves the ability to act with keen moral and political acumen — along with the ability to foster the key Confucian values of ren, translated commonly as benevolence, goodness, humanity, human-heartedness/humanity or as authoritative person or human becoming.’ (Jocelyn Marinescu, PhD)
Charlie Hebdo and Other Poems is Ejaz Rahim’s latest poetic collection comprising 88 poems on a vast variety of subjects enclosing the harsh existentialistic realities of our times apart from some vital abstractions like truth, love, friendship, hope, folly, wisdom, hubris, and logical positivism.
In his ‘Preface’ to the book, Ejaz Rahim poses a valid question as to the evaluation of
literature: ‘Do values matter in the realm of literary appraisal?’ His answer is that ‘values
matter because Art, Literature and Poetry are significant sources of wisdom for the benefit of the human race. It matters when a poet’s work leaves little or no hint about acceptance of diversity, respect for the ‘other’ or the ‘different’; empathy for vulnerabilities and
forgiveness, without which we become a race of intelligent morons. These are values that
History, Philosophy and Science unanimously regard as seminal for sustaining human life
itself in an increasingly heartless world.’
Viewed in this context, the poems in the collection exemplify the poet’s innate urge to
coalesce ethics, philosophy and science with art, literature and poetry into an organic entity
as opposed to the one that is ‘propagandist or instrumental’.
Ejaz Rahim’s Poems – Views and Reviews
Syed Afsar Sajid
Author: Ejaz Rahim
