Birds of North Europe
{{About|a poem|birds of Europe|List of European birds}}
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"Birds of North Europe" is a poem by Tabish Khair, the internationally acclaimed Indian English author and journalist. The poem won First Prize in the Sixth All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1995.{{cite web |url=http://www.indianpoetry.org/comp6.htm |title=Award Winning Poems - AIPC 1995 |access-date=2014-04-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317101536/http://indianpoetry.org/comp6.htm |archive-date=2015-03-17 |url-status=dead }} The poem brought the first major literary award for Tabish Khair, who is better known as a novelist of repute.
Excerpts from the poem
:Twenty-four years in different European cities and he had not lost
:His surprise at how birds stopped at the threshold
:Of their houses. Never
:Flying into rooms, to be decapitated by fan-blades or carefully
:Herded through open windows to another life, never
:Building on this lampshade
::: *****
:Did not intrude into private spheres. demanding to be overlooked
:Or worshipped. They did not consider houses simply
:Exotic trees or hollowed
:Hills. Not being particularly learned, he did not know the thread
:Of fear that knots the wild to the willed, not
:Being well-read, he
:Did not remember the history behind their old and geometrical
:Gardens, could not recall a time when the English
:Parliament had killed a bill,
:Shocked by a jackdaw's flight across the room. He simply marked
:The absence of uncaged birds in their homes. He thought
:It was strange.
Comments and criticism
The poem has received positive reviews since its first publication in 1995 in the book Emerging VoicesPoetry India - Emerging Voices by H K Kaul, Virgo Publications, 1995 and has since been widely anthologised.Contemporary Indian Poets by Jeet Thayil, Fulcrum, Bloodaxe Books, 1996 The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English poetry.{{cite web |url=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020324/spectrum/book10.htm |title= Fourteen Contemporary Indian Poets – Rana Nayar in The Tribune}}
See also
Notes
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References
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20150317101536/http://indianpoetry.org/comp6.htm Sixth National Poetry Competition 1988 - Award Winners]
- [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/contributors/contributions/ankit-khandelwal/Keep-going-and-stay-true-to-your-original-impulse-Tabish-Khair/articleshow/17986971.cms An Interview with Tabish Khair]
- [http://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/571649416.pdf | Contemporary Indian Poetry] by Jeet Thayil
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20121216063849/http://www.indiawrites.org/poetry/poetry.html India Writes - Contemporary Indian Poetry]
External links
- [http://www.duckduckgo.com/?q=Indian+poems "Popular Indian Poems"]
- [http://www.sugarmule.com/43Khair-t.htm Tabish Khair Poems]