Trending in Functional English & English Poetry
By Syed Afsar Sajid
- ‘Mastering Functional English for BS Programs’ by Dr. Muhammad Asif
- ‘Dreambox – Second Anthology of Proemistry’ by (Dr.) Ghulam Murtaza Aatir
‘Mastering Functional English’
Dr. Asif is a well-known teacher, trainer, and literati. His domain of specialization is English literature. He has a fairly long experience of teaching literature at post-graduate level (BS, MPhil, and PhD) besides preparing and training students for superior competitive examinations, in the areas of reading, comprehending, and writing English.
The afore-mentioned book is a unique creative exercise by him in grammar, academic writing, and other communicational skills ancillary to the allied arts of grammar and composition vital to the knowledge and practice of a language like English, the third most spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish. Interestingly the English language has gradually evolved into ‘a de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science, technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the internet’.
Though the book is primarily designed for the BS syllabus prescribed in the higher educational institutions in the country, it can also be gainfully employed by avid learners of the language at different academic and extra-academic levels such as aspirants for public service examinations, IT programmers, amateur users of the language, merchandisers and entrepreneurs, publicity media-persons, newsmen and prospective anchors.
The author’s manifesto neatly synchronizes with the intended design of the functional English course prescribed by the Government College University, Faisalabad which is ‘to equip students with essential language skills for effective communication in diverse real-world scenarios’ besides developing proficiency in English language usage: word choices, grammar and sentence structure. The contents of the instant book are conceived and designed in such a way as to enable students, as also the interested readers, to ‘navigate the globalized world with ease and efficacy’.
The subjects treated in the book are broadly listed and illustrated in three chapters viz. Foundations of Functional English, Comprehension and Analysis, and Effective Communication. The first chapter embraces vocabulary, grammar, word formation, sentence, and sound and pronunciation.
The second chapter deals with comprehension and analysis, contextual interpretation, reading strategies including SQ4R (Survey, Question, Read, Record, Recite, and Review), and critical reading and active listening. The 3rd and last chapter highlights the principles and practices of effective communication such as structuring documents, public speaking, presentations, informal communication, and professional writing.
The author being a seasoned scholar of the language and literature of English and a versatile communication expert, has diffused the long and the short of a wide context (spread over a space of some 340 odd pages) into a communicational interweave of clarity, conciseness, correctness, completeness, concreteness, consideration, and courtesy.
‘Dreambox’
Prof. Dr. Ghulam Murtaza Aatir currently chairs the department of English literature at Government College University, Faisalabad. The instant book embodies his second creative exercise in what he calls ‘proemistry’, after ‘Straggling through Fire’.
In his preface (I) to the book, the author explains that ‘it (proemistry) is not poetry; it was not conceived as poetry’. His inventive genius would tempt him to claim that ‘it is a blend of poetry and prose, media and history and, actually, whatever you can put into it, whatever you need to put into it. Proemistry is of the margin, for the margin, by the margin’. Thus for him ‘margin’ defines and in turn edifies these ‘proems’ as he views them. And lo and behold, this time they are 58 in number — not a negligible number by any count.
Mark some of the titles of these proems: Deceptions, Dreamers, Calculation of Tears, Evidence from Proverbs, Complimentarity, Recontextualization, Dreambox, Fumbling, Contusions, Indifference, A Monologue on True Lies, and those connected directly to the thematic connotations of the book like What is a Proem?, Recipe of a Proem, In Conversation with a Proem, The Limits of Proemistry, This is a Proem for Those, and One Word Proems.
Dilating on the mechanics of his brainchild ‘proem’, the author avows: ‘Art without commitment, without sense of belonging, without consciousness of people’s agonies, is babbling or howling or barking; anything but art. Art is never apolitical nor it should be nor it should attempt to look so.’ Elsewhere, the author urges (the reader) ‘to think beyond the pleasure of unintelligible ambiguity’ which he considers the bane of poetry as opposed to what may be inferred as ‘intelligible ambiguity’ or ‘ambiguous intelligibility’ being the boon of proemistry.
This juxtaposition, albeit acronymic, seems to lie at the roots of the controversy viz. proemistry versus poetry and vice versa. For the proemist that the author would love to be named and stylized as, ‘A proem is a series of questions/Posed silently in the quivering darkness of our hearts to those/Who can be respected but not questioned;/Who are to be loved without reciprocation;’.
Ghulam Murtaza Aatir is an academic who practises poetry both English and Urdu, as a passion. As pointed earlier, ‘Straggling through Fire’ was his maiden ‘proemistic’ venture that comprised his ‘proems’ (an adroit mix of prose and poetry but certainly not ‘prose poetry’) on a host of existentialistic issues besetting this generation. The argument is arduously pursued and sustained in the present work.
The author’s tone is sardonic, his attitude understandably rebellious, and his style cryptic. For the famed diasporic English fiction writer, Aamer Hussain, it (his style and stance) is ‘untammeled by the canon of English’. Ejaz Rahim, another literary stalwart, considers it ‘fiercely independent poetry’. Muddassar Ali, an upcoming scholar of English, in his thoughtful examination of ‘proemistry’ as a literary genre, pronounces that ‘Proemistry is ‘creative criticism’ as it is a blend of creativity and critique.’
Concluding, Dr. Zia Ahmad’s observation on ‘proemistry’ tends to sum up the argument when he proclaims that in proemistry ‘the ideal and romantic world has somehow receded by letting mine and your world supplant it’.
