‘Zard Patton Ka Ban’ launched

The Arts Council was host to the launch of a collection of verse by noted US-based poetess Ishrat Afreen, titled, “Zard Patton Ka Ban” (A jungle of decaying leaves).

Speaking on the occasion, Fazil Jameeli, poet and former president, Karachi Press Club, said on Tuesday that Ishrat’s poetry highlighted one’s innate affinity to the soil. Her fame, he said, had begun to match the likes of Fehmida Riaz.

The most significant aspect of her poetry, he said, was the longing for one’s soil, the motherland. Noted literary figure Aqeel Abbas Jafri, lauding Ishrat Afreen’s verse, said that her poetry reflects the pain when her soil is bathed in blood, the way it is so often these days.

“Whether it is Karachi or Houston, the magnitude of her pain is the same,” he said. Former Karachi University vice chancellor and poet Dr Pirzada Qasim lauded Ishrat’s love for one’s culture and civilisation. “She’s had a very dignified career,” he said. He, in particular, spoke highly of her poems, “Dil ka tohfa” “Blaclmail” and “Anjaam”.

Noted literary figure and intellectual Dr Asif Iqbal Farrukhi, in his very erudite discourse, lauded Ishrat’s style and her sensitivity to issues that dog the unfortunate, the victims of capitalist exploitation, victims of the vagaries of fate and so on so forth. He lauded her sensitivity and her tender heartedness.