"Birds of North Europe" is an award winning poem by Tabish Khair, the internationally acclaimed Indian English author and journalist. The poem won First Prize in the Sixth All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1995. The poem brought the first major literary award for Tabish Khair, who is better known as a novelist of repute.
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Excerpts from the poem
Twenty-four years in different European cities and he had not lostHis surprise at how birds stopped at the thresholdOf their houses. NeverFlying into rooms, to be decapitated by fan-blades or carefullyHerded through open windows to another life, neverBuilding on this lampshadeDid not intrude into private spheres. demanding to be overlookedOr worshipped. They did not consider houses simplyExotic trees or hollowedHills. Not being particularly learned, he did not know the threadOf fear that knots the wild to the willed, notBeing well-read, heDid not remember the history behind their old and geometricalGardens, could not recall a time when the EnglishParliament had killed a bill,Shocked by a jackdaw’s flight across the room. He simply markedThe absence of uncaged birds in their homes. He thoughtIt was strange.Comments and criticism
The poem has received rave reviews since its first publication in 1995 in the book Emerging Voices and has since been widely anthologised. The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English Poetry.
References
Birds of North Europe Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA