Legendary poetess Parveen Shakir was remembered on her 71st birth anniversary being observed here and across the country on Friday.
Parveen Shakir was a legendary female poet who started poetry in her childhood. Parveen Shakir was the first female poetess who expressed emotions and feelings of a young girl in a realistic manner.
Spontaneity in expression was the main feature and hallmark of her poetry that mesmerized the youth a lot, especially girls. Shakir started writing at a very young age, both in prose and poetry, while contributing her articles both in Urdu, and English newspapers. She was highly educated with two Master’s degrees, one in English Literature and one in Linguistics. She also held a PhD and another Master’s degree in Bank Administration.
Noted poetess and educationist Dr. Hameeda Shaheen told APP that Parveen Shakir’s poetry is known for its sentimental nature. Her poetry often touch on universal human experiences such as love, heartbreak, and the struggles of everyday life.
Moreover, her creative work was often based on romanticism while exploring the concepts of love, beauty and their contradictions, and heavily integrated the use of metaphors, smiles and personifications, she said.
To a query, Shaheen said that Shakir’s Ghazaliat are considered a combination of classical tradition with modern sensitivity, and mainly deal with the feminine perspective on love and romance, and associated themes such as beauty, intimacy, break-ups, separation, distances, distrust, infidelity and disloyalty.
It is worth mentioning here that in 1976, Parveen Shakir published her first volume of poetry ‘Khushbu’ (Fragrance) to great acclaim. She was awarded one of the highest honours of Pakistan the Pride of Performance for her outstanding literary contributions.
Shakir subsequently published other volumes of poetry including Sad-Barg (Marsh Marigold) in 1980 Khud Kalami (Soliloquy) and Inkar (Denial) in 1990.
Her all-poetry books are collected in Mah-e-Tamam (Full Moon). She also published a collection of her newspaper columns, titled Gosha-e-Chashm (Corner of the Eye), Kaf-e-Aina (The Mirrors Edge) was released posthumously with works from her diaries and journals.
On December 26, 1994, Shakir’s car collided with a bus while she was on her way to work in Islamabad.
The accident resulted in her death, a great loss to the Urdu poetry. The road on which the accident took place is named after her.