The Harkening

The Harkening by Ashfaq Saraf is his first collection of poems which are shaped by an essential desire to question life in all its formulations and imagine a world true in essence to the dreams of all those left behind oppressed silenced and denied. In The Harkening the author sets out to configure a way of looking at things inspired by his observations and highly influenced by where he grew up. The author makes intuitive observations about human existence which are central to the theme of his poems. For Ashfaq poetry is a form of meditation sometimes bordering on a subtle form of communication which can be effective in peeking through life -- what it entails to live in a world where injustice is manifest in the very essence of our being or at least in the way we have come to be. According to Saraf mankind dwells on a certain wish of immortality a desire to preserve. Our inability to forget at will to is a testament to our existence being a part of our own concern of what we should ourselves set out to examine. Through our physical being specifically our tongue we are able to transform language into existence. According to the author although there are many forms of communication language is most classless and unavoidable. However language is also complex owing to it being a subject of ones personality a platform around which a whole persona can meander. But Ashfaq maintains that nonetheless the essence of language is simple that it is a part of us like food and drink and the complexities are utterly a subject of ones desire to fiddle with the peculiar. The poems in this collection draw on themes as wide as ranging from personal reflection on what it might mean to be writing for the author to an attempt to question and live through a journey of thousands years of mankinds movement. Ashfaq completed this work while living in Bangalore mostly. A theme of exile abandonment and yearning also underlines most of the subject matter this collection peruses through.