Showing results by author "Khalid Hameed Shaida" in All Categories

Tender and sincere, Hafiz: The Voice of God, A Hundred Odes is a powerful collection of Hafiz's first one hundred lyrical poems, or ghazals, that bring to fruition love, mysticism, and other early Sufi themes. With a keen sense of timing and verse, the translator is able to capture the lyrical, at times playful, quality as well as Hafiz's profound messages that possess elements of modern surrealism.

With an arcing and emphatic beauty, Ghalib, the Indian Beloved by Khalid Hameed Shaida is a starry-eyed collection of 124 translated odes by Ghalib. Capturing the essence and pure song of one of the most loved romantic poets of India, Shaida's translation and interpretations also illustrate the deeply philosophical undertones of Ghalib's voice.

The poems in Faiz, a Wailing Nightingale establish Faiz as a great lyricist who embraced traditional motifs and subjects with an unrivaled passion and proclivity for verse that explores the natural and illusory qualities of love. Yet, as the title of the collection asserts, Faiz was a wailing nightingale-a tortured man who loved beauty, but found himself surrounded by the pain, sorrow, poverty, bloodshed, and tears of daily life in post-Colonial Pakistan.

Says Shaida: Myself your servant O let me call And a sense of Justice in me install And me with compassion O please enthrall And make me strong and make me tall But make me loving, most of all O God, O God, O please my God Okay, okay, you may be right But baby it's a beautiful night So let's drink and lets get tight And let's be loving and let's not fight Sure I've loved some girls before But I love you more, a whole lot more

The translator Shaida does something altogether breathtaking in the expansive and lovely poems found in Khusro, the Indian Orpheus: A Hundred Odes, a collection of 100 translated poems by Khusro, an Indian musician, scholar, and poet of Persian descent. Fans of Rumi, the translations of Coleman Barks in particular, and Persian poets in general will delight in this current and timeless effort.