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Prison poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz: A Study of the Select Prison Poems

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 LITERARY MISCELLANY (ISSN 2230-7451)
VOL. 8, NO. 1-2, JAN-DEC 2019

Prison poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz:

A Study of the Select Prison Poems
AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY
Kashmir University, J&K, India

ABSTRACT

The present paper will examine the poems written by Faiz

Ahmad Faiz in different jails of Pakistan, one of the most
prominent poets of South Asia and most influential Urdu poet
of the twentieth century. The paper will focus on how he has
managed to write some of the great poetry in prison where he
was even deprived of reading and writing materials. The paper
proposes to present select prison poems from his two
collections Dast-e-Saba (Hand of the Wind) and Zindnan
Nama (Prison Narrative) which he wrote during incarceration.
The present paper will study the aesthetics the poet has and his
universality for all humanity. The paper proposes to present
the prison poetry and how has created beauty behind iron bars
of a prison.

Keywords: Faiz Ahmad Faiz, prison poetry, aesthetic,

revolutionary, protest.

INTRODUCTION

Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-1984) was born in Sialkot India now in

Pakistan into an influential family. His father was a barrister;
Faiz enjoyed the literary circle from his childhood. After
graduation he did his Masters in English literature after two years
he did another Masters in Arabic literature. Besides being a poet
in Urdu he was a great scholar of English and Arabic as well. In
1935 he was appointed as a lecturer at the Mohammadan Anglo-
oriental college of Amritsar. Here he became acquainted with the
68 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

Marxist ideology, and he remained Marxist until his last breath.

In 1936 he became the active member of the Progressive Writer’s
Movement and fellow. He was appointed its first secretary by
Sajid Zaheer, his lifelong friend. In 1940 he became the lecturer
in English at Haily College of Commerce Lahore, but soon
resigned and joined British Military as a captain. He was then
promoted to Major and then lieutenant colonel. Here he worked
as an editor of army’s Urdu publication (Fauji Axbar) Army
Newspaper but again he resigned in 1947. When India got
freedom from British he decided to live in Pakistan but soon got
dejected with Pakistan and showed his dissatisfaction. There are
no qualms, in stating that Faiz is one of the greatest poets of the
twentieth century, his poetic world is colorful and much
beautiful. His poetry will inspire the future generation to struggle
against all the odds and hardships of life and never to give up and
surrender against any form of slavery and oppression.

RAWALPINDI CONSPIRACY CASE

On the night of 9 March 1951, the renowned twentieth-century

Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz along with Sajad Zaheer, Major-
General Akbar Khan, and several of Pakistan’s Army officers,
were arrested for the crime of conspiring to overthrow the
government of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. At the time,
Faiz was editor of the Pakistan Times, while Sajad Zaheer held
the position of General Secretary of the Pakistan Communist
Party. The trial which resulted from these arrests was to become
famous in Pakistan’s political history as the “Rawalpindi
Conspiracy Case.”
March 9, 1951, was the drastic milestone in his life when in
the wee hours of the morning, he was picked up from his house
and was sent first to Sargodha Jail and then in Hyderabad Central
Jail where he was incarcerated for four years. The news was a
shock to the entire country and world as well. In 1951 The
Lindon Times has characterized him as one of the “most
influential and leftist figures in Pakistan.” He was arrested by
Liaquat Ali’s government against the conspiracy to arrange a
communist-backed coup against the government of Pakistan.
PRISON POETRY OF FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ 69

Liaquat Ali Khan in an address on 21 March 1951 a few days

after Faiz’s arrest had stated about the case as “nipped a plot to
bring Pakistan under communist government administrated by a
military dictatorship”.

HIS LIFE IN JAILS AND POETRY

Faiz spent four long years in different jails of Pakistan. But this
period proved very fruitful to his literary carrier because he
produced some of the great poetry during incarceration, he
himself has called this period as “second adolescence” or
“another adolescence”. He wrote Dast-e-Saba (Hand of the
Wind) and Zidan Nama (Prison Narrative) most famous
collection of prison poetry in the world literature. Faiz is
regarded as the iconic voice of Pakistan and world as well. Most
of the time he was kept in solitary confinement where he was
even deprived of reading and writing material and was not
allowed meeting anyone. Faiz started writing poetry on the
prison walls with burned coal. His poetry expresses the struggle
against all kind of tyranny. Both Prison Narrative and Hand of
the Wind are fully packed with a genuine sense of optimism and
brave confidence. He was of the view to never bow against the
oppression and not to surrender your will and to speak the truth
to the world as he did in his poetry. The aesthetic, imagination
and hope for better dawn to come are always seen in his poetry.
His poetry shows sympathy not only for Pakistan but for the
whole world. Being a through Marxist he has a love for common
masses and the people who are suffering under the oppressive
regimes of the government. His poetry is a testimony to the fact
that the tyranny won’t last long and the day of freedom will come
soon where everyone will be freed from the clutches of
oppression.
His first collection of prison poems titled Daste Saba (Hand
of the Wind) was published in 1952; the collection is about the
impact of imprisonment on his life. The poems are packed with
rebelliousness, remembrance, longings, loneliness, and despair.
His poems are not only for subjugated of his own county and but
against other rulers of the world who are very oppressive to
70 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

common masses. Faiz is often hailed as the poet of protest. His

confinement here proved and burnished his image as an iconic
figure in the eyes of centuries to come. His prison period is
believed to be the most productive period in his writing world.
Behind the bars, he himself describes his incarceration as “My
two books Hand of the Wind (Dast-e-Saba) and Prison Narrative
(Zindnan Nama) are souvenirs of four years stay in prison.
Although these writings are related to the mental impression and
thought, a process which started within his collection Naqshi
Faradi, when he wrote “mujh say pehli si muhabat meray
mehboob na mang” (Don’t ask me to love you the way I did
before my love), is one of the most famous poems in this
collection. Prison itself is nevertheless, a fundamental experience
in which a new window of thought and vision opens itself. This
prison is like another adolescence when all the sensation
becomes sharp and one experience once again that same original
astonishment at feeling the dawn breeze, at seeing the shadow of
evening, the blue of the sky, the feeling the passing breeze.”
Thus all the humiliation, suffering, hardships and turmoil prison
brought to his life; Faiz faced all this with confidence and
optimism and used this incarceration to produce many of the best
prison poetry. Faiz is regarded as the greatest revolutionary poet
struggling against all odds and difficulties but moving ahead
courageously towards the heroic dreams of freedom to realize. In
prison, his poems had been smuggled out or sent out with his
letters and circulated widely. By the time of his release in 1955,
he had already become an iconic voice with his verses being
recited throughout the country. Faiz was once again imprisoned
during the period of Ayoub Khan in 1958 but was soon released
after five months. In 1962 he was awarded the Lenin Peace prize
as the most prestigious prize after Noble prize. He was four times
nominated for Noble prize. Faiz was now widely acclaimed in
the Indian subcontinent and globe as well. Now Faiz has being
translated into English and other major languages of the world.
Victor Kiernan was the first Englishman who translated him into
English with extensive analysis of his poems. After him, Shiv
Kumar, Noami Lizard, and Aga Shahid Ali are great scholars
who translated his poetry.
PRISON POETRY OF FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ 71

His first prison collection Dast-e-Saba (Hand of the Wind)

was published in 1952, when still he was in prison. In the
introductory essay, Faiz says one must be able to perceive “an
ocean in the drop of water” his poetry and art lies in the endless
effort and struggle, his struggle has no end. His body was kept in
dark chambers of the prison but his soul, imagination and will to
not surrender was never. The very first poem of the Dast-e-Saba
is strong determination what does it matter if his body has caged.
Denied of the pen and paper as he heroically wrote:

My pen and tablet, all that I had

Taken away from me
But what is there to grieve for?
For I have dipped my fingers in my hearts blood
So what if my lips have been sealed shut?
I have now put a tongue in
Each and every link of the chain
(Faiz 2017: 19)

The most notable ghazal in this collection ‘Slate and Pen’ (Lauh-
o qalam) is about the enthusiasm and strong will to realize his
ideal dream to reach his goal as Faiz expresses:

I will go on the nurturing the Tablet and the pen

I will go on the recording what the hearts go through
I’ll go on providing reasons for the sorrow of love
I’ll keep going kind to the desolation of the times

No doubt, the harshness of the times will grow even worse

No doubt, the tyrants will continue to practice tyranny

I accept the harshness, I bear this torture

I’ll go on trying to remedy the affiliation with every breath

Long the wine house with the wine fiery red color
I’ll go on decorating the doors and balconies of holy spaces

So long as there is blood in my heart, with my tears

I’ll go on creating the colures of beloved’s face
72 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

Her way is unmindfulness, so she’s free to cultivate it

And have to voice my longings, so I’ll go on doing it.
(Faiz 2017: 25-26)

The poet expresses and states that things which happen to the
heart doesn’t only refer to the love of heart but other experience
as well including confinement to the jail. The love expressed in
the poem is not only the beloved lady but his country, the
desolateness refers t the present situation of his country Pakistan,
but this won’t last long because there are persons like Faiz who
express their love for the country and humanity and are always
ready to sacrifice. He expresses the oppression of tyrants’ to the
country; he is the witness of this torture and harshness but won’t
stop to realize their ideal dream for its remedy. Poet goes on to
state that he will continue to decorate the balconies and walls
with wine, here he is praying for the wines to live long instead of
mosques. As long as he has the strength and blood in veins and
as long his heart is pumping blood, mixed with tears in his eyes
he will use it to decorate the lips of his beloved to express deep
love and intense emotion for his beloved. The poem expresses
Faiz’s plight and torture but will to not surrender against this, he
is ready to give every breath of his life for the cause of his
country and humanity. He will continue to fight against all this
with full enthusiasm and vigor.
Another poem in this collection ‘To Your Beauty’
(Tumhaare Husn Ke Namm) is written during his incarceration.
The poet speaks of loneliness that grips him, detached from home
and beloved for long, he now thinks of the beauty, although he is
away from beloved but there was no stain of loneliness because
he is blessed with the sweet memory of his beloved as the poet
has beautifully described the beauty as following

The Poet composes solutions to your beauty

When the colors of someone’s garment are sprinkled on the terrace
The morning is brightened sometimes, or the afternoon, or the
evening
The cypress and the pine in the garden have found fresh grace
PRISON POETRY OF FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ 73

The ghazal began to take shape when the heart dipped the wine
glass
In the reflection of your lips and face
The poet composes solutions to your beauty-
So long as the henna’s color on palms retains itself brightness
There remain in the world the art of how to love the bride called
poetry
So long as your beauty has youthful power, the world is kind to me
So long as you draw breath, the air of our land is our friend
Even if times are tough and misfortunes enough extreme
Your memory sweets the bitterness of the times
The poet composes solutions to your beauty.
(Faiz 2017: 29-30)

This is a love poem in the collection with some other love poems,
this poem is purely romantic in nature, her poet praises beauty,
and he was away from his beloved. The poem is a greeting from
a lover to his beloved who are separated, they have an intense
longing for each other. There is imagery in the poem like
“bitterness of time” which suggests that the reasons for their
separation are very strong as the imprisonment had kept them
miles away from each other. But poet goes on to say although it
is very tough time to bear, it is beloved’s memory which keeps
him alive, the allusions like lips, face and henna stained hand
clearly shows the beloved memory in the dark chambers. It is the
beautiful memories of his beloved which will enable him to
withstand the harsh times. And as long as the beloved’s beauty
has youthful charm, the world will be kind to him. No matter the
times are very tough but the memory of her beloved sweetens
this bitterness as life seems very sweet and delicious for him.
Zindnan Nama (The Prison Narrative) Faiz’s third collection
of poems was published in 1956 in Pakistan. Most of the poems
are dated and the place is mentioned where he wrote this poem.
The order, date, and place of composition are clearly mentioned
in each poem’s epigraph. He can’t bear the wasteland of his
country, the suffering, and hardships of people, the ignorance and
ruthlessness of government. No doubt there is complete chaos
and uncertainty prevailing all around but he hopes for a new
dawn to rise. The place of the composition of most of the poems
74 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

is Montgomery, Hyderabad and Sind jails of Pakistan during the

last years of his incarceration in 1954, 1955. The most
remarkable poem is ‘Mulaqat’ (Meeting) is divided into three
distinct parts written in Montgomery jail. The imagery and
imagination used in the poem catch heart and mind at once. In
the poem, there is the sorrow of the lovers who are suffering at
the hands of oppressive regimes. It is an imaginary meeting
between two lovers who are although kept away from each other
but they are very close because of their love, and only love can
bridge the gaps. At the very opening of the poem, the poet
provides the image of the tree as

The night is the tree of pain

That is greater than you or me
(Faiz 2017: 51)

The imagery used in the poem is very significant as the dark is

associated with the grief and sorrow, the sweat of the forehead
with the dew drops and to the diamond on the forehead. When
one is in prison he is away from his near and dear ones but here
poet has the great aesthetic to create beauty even in these dark
hours of the night. He goes on to say that in the dark the voice is
coming from these dark chambers of his beloved as “stream of
blood” as in the second part of the poem he says

The night is very dark, but

In this darkness shine out
That stream of blood which is my voice
It is this shade that shines brightly
The golden flow which is your gaze
(Faiz 2017: 52)

The poet goes on to say that branches have been bowed with the
grief, the arrows from the branches are targeted to the people
from every branch but they picked up these arrows and turned it
into the axes which will be used for them who shot them arrows.
This shows the resistance approach to fight against the unjust law
where one is not allowed to speak the truth. But the poet is
PRISON POETRY OF FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ 75

saying no matter this night of grief is very intense but it is

transitory and we should not lose faith, hope and struggle to
transform this grief into sweetness. This is grief night but this is
only the evening of the sorrow, as every evening gives us the
promise of a new dawn as a poet is saying in the final stanza

That sorrow that was imparted by this night

The same sorrow has been the conviction of the morning
Conviction, which is of compassion more than sorrow
Morning, which is of greatness more than night.
(Faiz 2017: 53)

There are no qualms, in stating that Faiz’s poetry advocates the

ideals of revolution and resistance. His poetry discloses that the
dangers of exploitation, the oppression of tyrants, the situation of
poor and weak at the hand of forces of the capitalist. Many
poems in the Zindanan Nama are written in responses to the
political events taking place in Pakistan and the world as well.
His love poems are mainly concerned with the separation of his
beloved from his lover but also have political coloring. His
poetry offers an undaunted sense of optimism, a sense of better
tomorrow despite all the odds, his faith in the righteous of the
cause. His poetry shows a firm belief in the future and the
destruction of the traynts who have imprisoned him, there is a
manifestation of love and sympathy for his country, people and
for all humanity; a great universality indeed. His poetry is not
only perception and observation of events but also struggle and
effort against this. He became the symbol of resistance. He
condemned despotism, elitism, and oppression. He gave hope
and voice to the voiceless and promised the day of freedom
would come. His another poem in the Zindanan Nama (Prison
Narrative) entitled ‘Koi Ashiq Kisi Mehboob to say’ ‘A Lover
to a Beloved’ is very remarkable

This memory lane which you have been treading

In this manner for a long time now
Will come to an end should you go some more steps
There is some bend there, that of the wilderness of forgetting
76 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

Beyond it, there is neither someone called i

Nor someone called you
Eyes watch with bated breath for who knows when
You’d return, or pass, or turn your head to look

Although the eyes are aware, all this is nothing but an illusion
Yet if ever somewhere the eyes held you in an embrace
Another road will immediately foliate there
On which there’ll again be, constantly in front of us
The journey of the caressing arm, the tresses shade

That other thing is also false: the heart knows

There are no more bend, no wilderness, no ambush
That I may be deceived into sinking my moon as they roll by
Better let this path be peopled by your tread as before
No matter
If you didn’t turn to look.
(Faiz 2017: 60-61)

Reflection of the beloved to the poet, internal agonies,

unconditional love for his country and people, oppression to the
tyrants and his commitment to the remedy of an unjust law is
clearly seen here. In the poem he feels the pain of separation
from beloved, since its very long to even have a glimpse of
beloved, the poet uses beautiful imagery of “Zulf” the curls of his
beloved. He had a deep sense of love and longing for his
beloved, it may be his lady love and country as well. The
imprisonment has separated him from his beloved, his life’s
conditions outside the jails are getting worse, but as per his jail
inmates Faiz has never been pessimist to his life, life seemed
beautiful to him even behind the bars, he had the aesthetic power
and to create beauty in prison as in the poem ‘Zinda ki Ek Sham’
(Prison Evening) he echoes

A gentle breeze passes softly

as if someone uttering words of love
(Faiz 2017: 41)

He goes on to say,
PRISON POETRY OF FAIZ AHMAD FAIZ 77

The mind tells the heart, again and again

How beautiful is life at this movement!
(Faiz 2017: 42)

CONCLUSION

Faiz is one of the most celebrated, revolutionary, witnesses and

the protest poet of the twentieth century, He had a deep sense of
love and compassion for his people and country, and he is the
poet who speaks for the lonely and oppressed. Being a through
Marxist there is universality in his poetry. In fact, he is a voice
for the voiceless. The world will remember and miss him always.
His prison poetry has acclaimed much recognition in the entire
world, reading his prison poetry gives strength and power to
stand up against all the odds of life and to change these
adversities into prosperities.

REFERENCES

Abbas, Q. 2013. Twin poets who lived apart: Nazim Hikmet and Faiz
Ahmed. Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, 5/2, 139-148.
Coppola, C. 1992. Another adolescence: The prison poetry of Faiz
Ahmad Faiz. Journal of Asian Literature, 27/2, 149-174.
Faiz, A. F. 1952. Dast-e-Saba. Pakistan: Shafiq Book Depot.
——. 1955. Zindnan Nama. Aligarh, India: Educational Book House.
——. 1995. The Rebel’s Silhouette: Selected Poems. Trans. Aga Shahid
Ali. USA: University of Massachusetts Press.
——. 2017. The Colours of My Heart: Selected Poems. Trans. Baron
Farooqi. India: Penguin Books.
Genoways, T. 2004. Let them snuff out the Moon: Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s
prison lyrics in Dast-e-Saba. The Annual of Urdu Studies, 19, 94-
119.
Kantor, R. 2016. My heart, my fellow traveler: Fantasy, futurity and the
itineraries of Faiz Ahmad Faiz. South Asia: Journal of Asian
Literature, 39/3, 608-625.
Salah, S. & Jusoh, Y. 2017. Universality of PB Shelly and Faiz Ahmad
Faiz ideological art: A comparative study. Journal of Advanced
Research and Behavioral Science, 4/1, 64-72.
 78 AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

Shahid, T. The politics of enchantment: Remapping the precaptial in

Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s postcolonial poetry. The Annual 0f Urdu
Studies, 28, 215-248.

AHSAN UL HAQ MAGRAY

PHD RESEARCH SCHOLAR,
KASHMIR UNIVERSITY,
SRINAGAR , J&K INDIA.
E-MAIL: <AHSANULHAQ045@GMAIL.COM>

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