They say you are born in the times in which you are meant to evolve, and, while that may be true, evolution is neither easy nor something any one can confidently hold in the palm of their hands and claim as their own. This collection of free verse poems, inspired by the many diverse challenges and varied experiences faced, over the course of the past four years, in the two vastly different worlds of Lahore, Pakistan and Sydney, Australia, wishes to make no such evolutionary claims. It has, however, evolved out of a need to pause, process and make sense of some of what a day or night, a face or a place, a thought or an emotion, brings to the one who stops to observe it. Sometimes it makes sense and at others it doesn’t, and this collection acknowledges the coexistence of both in any given moment. And so, if you are looking for answers and clarifications in the hope of cracking the code, keep reading, for you’ll notice, so am I.

REVIEWS

Meg Mosier, English Language Arts teacher, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred heart, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

It has been lovely to spend time with Sadaf’s poetry over this past week. I have added one, that was more accessible to our middle school readers, to our Poetry packet for future years . Her poem ‘The Prism’ made me feel the same comfort conversations with my father have brought me over the years. He has a way of helping me see myself – and my worries – on a universal scale. The lines, “The effort of a million trees/ Standing tall/ Since forever to sustain me” creates a clear image in my mind’s eye and steadiness in my soul. Thank you for sharing this collection with me.

18th January, 2022.

Clive Roger Barnes, Principal, IB World School, TNS Beaconhouse, Lahore, Pakistan.

As I browse through and look at some of Sadaf’s verses in depth, I find some very close affinity with our situation as peripatetics. Most especially though, I found both stimulus, solace and happiness in a number of the poems. Her style is freeform for the most but the imagery trips along nicely and even profoundly at times. She takes life and what it offers both good, sad and bad on the chin and there is always a strong element of hope and persistence that life is worth living. Her deft and poignant use of words and rhyme and the shape and paucity of the shape of her poems is so refreshing and personal and so very telling.

3rd February 2022

Another pool of orange: my echo chamber.

Unlike our personalised social media feeds, the echo chambers of our creativity, instead of narrowing our world, expand it. It is ironic that the reels of nature, with the same sunrise and sunset, the same four seasons, the same day and night continue to be a generative source of inspiration and stimulation for our art, creativity and imagination. As we grow, our understanding of them grows too. And it is this understanding that continues to expand our echo chambers, instead of narrowing it.

And so, after three years of publishing my book of poems, titled, On sad afternoons: A pool of orange and other poems, with its very autumn- coloured book cover and website, I have grown in understanding and found ‘Another pool of orange: my echo chamber’ waiting for me to bring them together in one echo chamber. Some of these poems were written in the fall season, Sydney, Australia, and some on my more recent travels to Maryland and Virginia, USA, during the fall season of 2024.

I would like to share the poem, ‘A pool of orange’, inspired by the image below and published in 2021:

‘A pool of orange’

*
Dark, bare, wet
Dark, bare, wet, tree trunks
Once carried within them xylem and phloem tubes
That allowed the traffic of green ideas
To travel up and down
Ans create, survive and blossom
Against and along gravity
In an organised frenzy
Life.
*
And then the sun withdrew and the earth turned
And life let go of the tree
It had passed through so graciously
Xylem and phloem tubes Froze
And each leaf died
And spilled into the many hues of red and yellow
An overwhelming pool of orange
*
Dark bare, wet, tree trunks
With their gnarled fingers and
Naked branches
Stand in a pool of orange
Unable to bend down
And lift the tattered remains of a garment
That once clung to them for life.
*

Khan, S. 2021. ‘A pool of orange’ in On sad afternoons: A pool of orange and other poems. Singapore: Partridge Publishing, p.24-25)

Another pool of orange: my echo chamber

Having become more familiar with social media, many of the poems in this new collection are preserved as reels in my echo chamber of @sad.afternoons

1. They say

https://www.instagram.com/p/CtYiyqzS7ht/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

2. One last time

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4A52vbP9oa/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

3. One leaf at a time

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DArg92UPcA8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

4. Reciprocity

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCVpaDVuNsR/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

5. I see red

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCkdB9TvYq-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

6. November rain

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DC2MuYNvh7j/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==