{"product_id":"the-shade-of-longing-and-other-poems","title":"The Shade of Longing and other Poems","description":"\u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;color:#444444;background:#FCFCFC\"\u0026gt;The Shade of\r\nLonging and Other Poems is a collection of poems that are personal keepsakes\r\nfor eras, people and places that no longer exist. The book is intended as a\r\nportal to enter these otherwise lost worlds. The mystery of the past haunts us\r\nand we wrestle with it - will we ever be rid of its shadow? Will we overcome\r\nthis persisting ailment? The collection traces the journey from one memory book\r\nto another, reaching a state of not-there, not-here, to losing faith, to\r\nfinally reaching a sense of closure. On the way there are musings, detours,\r\nsome games of solitaire.\u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;\r\nmso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;\r\n\r\nThe contemplation of the past involves an evocative presence of a surreal\r\npresent - you are but transformed into re-living a time that simply does not\r\nexist anymore. In doing so, you are in a heightened state of present-past - a\r\ndouble consciousness that is more than the sum equal of its parts. It hovers\r\ninto the unknown and even becomes a new kind of state - neither past nor\r\npresent but akin to an alternate universe. \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;The story of this book begins in this\r\nnowhereness in “Memory Book 1 . I feel that poetry communicates in a  slant'\r\nand the first chapter of this book invites you to travel with it to a somewhat\r\nforbidden place. The mood is neither right nor wrong, nor does it take sides -\r\nfor it constantly revisits old pain from multiple perspectives. \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;“Memory Book 2  takes an obsessive look at the\r\nelusive, deceptive and rain nature of memories - occurring again and again as\r\nendless water from the skies. It reconstructs in a water dream, instances that\r\nhave chased me to nervous and breathless wakefulness. \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;As if the assault of all this weren't enough,\r\nonce you've stepped into the unchained past - a realm of the mind now, not\r\nlimited to time and place - you find yourself deep in the middle of the sea. I\r\ncall this state “Barzarkh . This is the shadowy limbo where you may live but\r\nnever belong. It is the eternal traveler who can possess no certainties - for\r\nthe past is indeed dead but it exists as a metaphor in the mind. You wrestle\r\nwith the notion that perhaps it is merely imagination that pulls you and\r\nnothing that is  real.' \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;You emerge out of the “barzarkh , as a being\r\nthat is shaken to its core. You have experienced an invocation of ghosts,\r\nforbidden and timeless realms, and endless recurrence that is true and untrue\r\nat the same moment. It has changed you, made you turn into a  skeptic.' You no\r\nlonger care for certainties, are in the mood for ambivalence and laugh at any\r\nfaithful representation of what has been your own life. \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;The final chapter, “Leave-taking  marks in a\r\nline from Wallace Stevens; “the edge\/Of one of many circles . Memory is a\r\nblackbird that is leaving you finally - the state that had overcome you is\r\nletting go of its strange hold on you. This freedom comes at a cost and you are\r\nnow a changed person. The land of the dead - for nothing was alive or real here\r\n- entered you and made you its own, but is now dying a second time.\u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;The last three chapters at times indulge in\r\nthe absolute present and are not steady clockwork to a thematic movement. This\r\nis similar to the mind that is here at one moment, and galloping into forgotten\r\nlore at another. \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;These poems arrived in succession and lingered\r\nas a candle-lit street on a windy night. Their lifespan was memory, dream and\r\nhallucination. The specific shade was of a longing for these to persist - but\r\nit was the doomed color of autumn. I hope that under its wing, it will provide\r\na gateway to travel to those mind-places that is one is afraid to visit alone. \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;\r\nmso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;and \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-family:\r\nCalibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;and \u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-family:\r\nCalibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;and \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u0026lt;span style=\"font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-bidi-font-family:\r\nCalibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin\"\u0026gt;and ","brand":"Fatima Ijaz","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44215370678332,"sku":"9789692278072","price":420.75,"currency_code":"PKR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0714\/7706\/7836\/files\/shade_20of_20longing.jpg?v=1776754654","url":"https:\/\/libertybooksstore.myshopify.com\/products\/the-shade-of-longing-and-other-poems","provider":"LibertyBooksStore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}