|
Rehan Qayoom
|
|
|
|
right Rehan Qayoom (August 4, 1979 -) is an English and Urdu writer and poet of Indian origin. He was born in the UK. He has the distinction of being the only poet writing actively in 2 distinctly different languages in the UK. He is employed in many independent literary projects. He has written in English and Urdu for - Ahmadiyya Bulletin, Ancient Heart, The Asian Awam , Atomic Petals, Autumn Leaves , The Beat , Dawn , Community Times (Romford) , The Delinquent , Imaani Magazine, Interpoetry , KRITYA , The Lamp & Owl , OPS Times, Phoenix New Life Poetry , PEF Poetry Combination Module , Poetry Cemetery , The Poet's Letter , Sada Magazine, Sentinel Poetry , TARIQ, Wandering Dog, and his poems have appeared in 2 anthologies (Loving Feelings and Twilight Road). His book Seeking Betjeman Country was written in commemoration of the hundredth birthday of the Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, (1906 - 1985). The forthcoming book will be about poets buried in the Magnificent Seven London cemeteries. The Path of Memory is a collection of his obituaries. He lives in London surrounded by books. Early Life Rehan was born and bred in Barking, east London. He attended Northbury School in Barking between 1983 and 1990. He describes these years as being the best of his life. Many of his formative beliefs and ideals (that were later developed into elaborate theories) took root during these years . He began reading vociferously as soon as he could read and write and his childhood reading in the very early years included the books of Shirley Hughes, Roald Dahl and Beatrix Potter. He also studied the Arabian Nights and The Bible and Qur'an which he read for the first time by the age of 7. Education & Formative Years Rehan attended Barking Abbey between the years 1990 - 1995. Studying up toGCSE level. During these years he first began writing seriously and many of his earliest poems date from this period. Around this time he also thoroughly began studying other books of eastern religious literature such as Confucianism and immersed himself in the poetry of the Urdu poet Ghalib. In this way he familiarized himself with both eastern and western cultures and lifestyles at a very early age. Rehan obtained a Diploma in Freelance Journalism from the London School of Journalism in 1998 and attended Havering College of Further & Higher Education from 1997 - 1998 where he studied for a GNVQ in Media Studies. He read English Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London from 2001 - 2005. Early writings and influences Rehan began writing poems in both English and Urdu in his early teens and prose in his late teens. Mostly on religion, grounded in his Ahmadiyya Islamic beliefs and secular influences derived from his extensive reading of diverse literatures. His earliest work includes essays ranging from those on the concepts of Mercy, Knowledge, Interest, Purdah, Divine Guidance and Hypocrisy to thorough evaluations of poetics. He has, for example, argued in 'Fontanelle fons et origo' that there is, in fact, a very clear and decipherable line between poetry and prose so that those who seek to find a half-way house in presenting a so-called prose-poem are actually hypocrits to their art. He has also argued elsewhere that the timelessness of meter and metrical verse forms are fundemental essentials in poetry, so that even when a poet composes Free Verse, they are not entirely free from metrical restrictions. These early works are now being collected in the forthcoming PROSE 1997 - 2007 which also includes other (less important) writings such as film and book reviews. Rehan's earliest prose works are deeply grounded in Islamic literature such as the Qur'an as well as Hadith. Also Ahmadi theological literature such as the works of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the Khalifas of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Travels Rehan visited Switzerland in 1987 and 2001, France in 1991 and 1993, Belgium in 1998, Lithuania in 1999, Germany in 2001 and USA in 2005. Poetry Rehan has been inspired and influenced by a collosal range of different poets, amongst whom the anglo-American poet W. H. Auden, the British poet John Betjeman, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath have been noted influences throughout Rehan's poetry. He is also influenced by Greek Mythology and the works of many classical poets such as Homer and Catullus. Many of his English poems are translations in poetry from Urdu poets such as Faiz, Aleem and Parveen Shakir . He has also made translations in poetry from Sappho, Catullus and Ovid. The English poems have an overall streak of scepticism and whimsical tone in which the concept of love acts as a strong ideal and fundemental belief as well as a depresseive, negative and destructive emotion rather than a positive and productive one. His Urdu poetry has a strong overall tone of pathos, scepticism and melancholy. A sense of failure and doom which is arguably also a mark of literary composition in Urdu. Prose 2000 - 2007 Between 2000 and 2007 Rehan wrote many artiles, reviews and essays including a theological review of Sophie's Log written in 2000. In 2003 he wrote a review of the Women at War exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London. . In this review he wrote about his early fascination with and interest in the Second World War. The same year Rehan wrote an extensive essay detailing the Pagan origins of Christianity by the name of 'JESUS - The only original element in Christianity.' In this he agrees with the premise of Mirza Tahir Ahmad that Saint Paul corrupted the original teachings of Jesus to gain converts from the Pagan nations. The essay is deeply rooted in The White Goddess by Robert Graves. He suggests that the parallels drawn between Christ and Buddha by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough are culled from Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian who first presented the striking similarities between the two in Jesus of India many decades before Frazer’s book was published. He also reviewed the controversial Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ, which was published in The Lamp & Owl under the title of 'The Passion of the Christ' - View from a Muslim . Other significant reviews of late include those on NOOR . An album of songs by Geoffrey Armes, inspired by the Sufi singer Noor Inayat Khan who was captured, interrogated and eventually killed by the Nazis in 1944. Reviews of 'Ten Feet High' by Andrea Corr , 'The sweetness of poetry' a review of Secret Rapper by Jude Simpson , Passage d'Enfer, the scent by Olivia Giacobetti created for L'Artisan_Parfumeur. OMISSIONS In 2006 Rehan wrote a lengthy review of Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, the high-functioning autistic savant. Daniel Tammet was a childhood friend and Rehan disagrees with a number of the claims Tammet makes in this book. Rehan also claims to have a unique perspective in that they spent over a decade together as the best of friends. Tammet was an active member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to which Rehan belongs from 1994 - 1999 after which he converted to Buddhism and then to Taoism. Finally coming to his current leanings towards Christianity. Controversially, Rehan takes issue with the whole idea of Asperger's Syndrome and Savant Syndrome, arguing that Almost all good creative artists worth their salt, poets and musicians have lives as socially abnormal outsiders, often leading unreal childhoods doing unusual things and playing unconventional games. This is also a recurrent theme in Rehan's early work where he argues that artists both externally and internally actively 'alienate themselves from the collective' in order to a have a Hawk's Eye perspective of the world. He goes on to make a number of corrections about himself, from the book, hence the title OMISSIONS. This is significant because Tammet claims to remember everything from the point of conception in the womb to present 'as lucidly as yesterday'. Rehan claims that his 'own long-term memory is exceptionally good and certainly far better than Daniel’s'. He provides examples from the world of science and from personal experience Poetic Iconology & the Goddess of Divine Being Poetic Iconology & the Goddess of Divine Being is an ongoing theological work and literary thesis. The work harks back to a number of diverse controversial sources such as John Livingston Lowes' The Road to Xanadu, Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, Frazer's The Golden Bough, Graves' The White Goddess, Hughes' Shakespeare & the Goddess of Complete Being, Buhagiar's Ugly Dick & the Goddess of Complete Being. Other sources upon which Rehan bases his thesis and arguments (though literary in nature) are Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth by Mirza Tahir Ahmad and Ser - E - Roohani by Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad. The arguments presented cover a wide range of academic, literary and theological doctrines. The idea of the Muse in poetry as an incarnate agent provocateur of inspiration, the concept of the Territorial Imperative (also recognized as the Hortus Conclusus, the Good Place, the Genius Loci) as presented before man through history and throughout world literature. Also covered is an in-depth study of Paganism and whether it has any role in the schemata of divinely revealed religions of the world such as Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism etc.
Write Comment |
||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Main Menu
| Home |
| Articles |
| Search |
| Submit Article |
| Contact Us |
| Donate to Wikibin |