Selected Poems of Jasim Uddin

INTRODUCTION In translating the poems collected here, I have attempted to convey my deep admiration for them. Not only are they the creation of my favourite poet-my father-but they deal so intimately with the life of my country. The poetry of Jasim Uddin is about rice fields that spread like embroidered quilts, cloud colour game of a monsoon sky, the smile of a dark cowherd boy, the bamboo flute that mourns over a lost love, a spirit of sensuousness that flowers on a rainy day, the songs of the great rivers Padma, Meghna, Jamuna, and the sorrows and tears of the Bengali people. Bengali, derived from the classical Indian language Sanskrit, is an extremely poetic and sensuous language. I have attempted to capture the Bengali flavour in my English translation. These poems in translation cannot claim to be perfect reproduction in English of the poems as they come to life in Bengali. I have tried to stay as close to the original as possible without being too literal. It has not been my ambition to imitate the poems' rhymes or rhythms, but I have tried to reproduce my father's style of saying things simply. At places my translation seems to be freer than perhaps my father would approve. Elsewhere I have intentionally let my English version move as in Bengali with all its emotion and love of repetition.