This is a concise and representative volume of Zulfikar Ghose’s poetry for the general reader and for scholars specializing in contemporary English poetry and post-colonial literature. The earliest of the selected poems established Zulfikar Ghose as Pakistan’s premier English language poet. Deracination, an obsessive theme in his early work, resonates as a metaphor for the human condition and gives the poems their universal appeal. The new poems draw upon a wider experience, ranging from an elegy on Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to a meditation on the Botanical Garden in Rio de Janeiro, all heightened by a philosophical underpinning which is a hallmark of Zulfikar Ghose’s work. An impeccable craftsman and creator of striking images, whose themes touch the core of human experience, he is a poet of lasting significance.
