Selected Surrealist Poems by Abdul Mannan Syed

Abdul Mannan Syed (1 943-2010), a versatile writer, poet and researcher has authored some 150 books to his credit. He is the pioneer of Surrealist poetry in Bangla literature - thus introducing a stream of poetry which has never been attempted by any poet before him, except Jibanananda Das in some of his poems. As a researcher of Jibanananda and Nazrul he is unique in form, content and quality. For his outstanding contribution to literature and research he was made a scholar-in-residence at North South University. This volume translated from Bangla into English contains 32 poems of Abdul Mannan Syed. The poems have been selected from his Janmandho Kavita Guchcha (1967), Joytsna Roudrer Chikitsha(1 969) and Paravastava Kavita (1982). The first book on its publication dealt a tremendous shock to the stock response of the lovers of poetry. Mannan who wrote his first surrealist poem at the age of 16 broke away from the traditional prosodic patterns. They were written in mostly cadenced prose filled with imagery that was strange, outlandish, ghoulish, often repellent. Though he did not read Andre Breton that early in his life, he later confessed that surrealism was in his blood. It is obvious that the poet did not care for the popular acceptance or adulation in the first two books of poems. Every reader thought the poems were obscure or even absurd - but no one could put him aside as nonsensical. We hope this slender volume with parallel texts will give to the English readers a taste of the kind of poetry he introduced in Bangla literature.

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