Shamim Azad: The Literary Heart of Diaspora

Shamim Azad: The Literary Heart of Our Diaspora


Faruk Ahmed Roni

From the moment I first encountered Shamim Azad (Apa), I knew I was in the presence of someone extraordinary. She has always been, to me, like the very oxygen that allows a life dedicated to creativity to breathe. Seeing her, whether in the pages of a magazine, on television, or in person, has always been a reminder that life is not meant to pause; it is meant to create, to express, and to persist. Life may be brief, but the work it demands is endless. Shamim Azad embodies this belief, and through her tireless devotion to literature, she has inspired countless individuals, including myself, to embrace that creative urgency.

As I begin this tribute to Shamim Azad, I do so entirely from my personal experience and deep connection with her. I sometimes call her Apa (in Bengali), which means “elder sister,” as a mark of respect. To avoid any confusion, please note that when I refer to Apa and Shamim Azad, I am speaking of the same remarkable person.

Throughout our shared decades in the UK literary landscape, Shamim Apa has been not just a collaborator but a constant source of inspiration. Working alongside her, observing her disciplined approach to writing, her unwavering dedication to storytelling, and her boundless curiosity about people and the world has been profoundly formative for me and for countless others. Her life and work embody the principle that creativity is both a duty and a joy, and that literature holds the power to sustain, to challenge, and to transform.
Shamim Apa’s journey spans continents, languages, and genres. She has contributed profoundly to British-Bangladeshi literature, bridging cultural memory with contemporary experience. Her work as a poet, playwright, editor, and translator reflects both a commitment to her heritage and a global literary sensibility. Over the years, she has nurtured a generation of writers and artists, offering guidance, mentorship, and inspiration through her creativity and personal example.

Our first awareness of one another stretches back to the 1980s, when both of us were young and exploring the contours of poetry and literature in our respective worlds. I was new to the literary scene in the United Kingdom, a young aspirant trying to make sense of the diasporic terrain and the diverse cultural rhythms of this adopted land. Shamim Apa, already a force of literary energy, appeared in magazines like Bichitra and on various cultural platforms, her presence a magnetic blend of intellect, charm, and a kind of magical charisma that could captivate anyone who came near her work. Even though there was an age gap of nearly a decade between us, I felt an almost instinctive respect and admiration, a quiet love for her poetic voice that grew alongside my own development as a writer.

I vividly remember our first meeting in London, in 1987, at the Holland Park School waiting room. It was a chance encounter, a serendipitous moment that would cement a lifelong bond. At that time, my younger sister was a student at the school, and Shamim Apa had come to London for literary purposes. She sat beside me, and for a brief moment, the world seemed to pause. Here was the person whose work I had followed from afar, whose poetry had moved me, whose intellect had inspired me, and now she was there, tangible, breathing, and gracious. That encounter, though brief, laid the foundation for a deep and enduring connection that has lasted over three and a half decades.
Since 1990, when Shamim Azad settled in London to take up her permanent teaching role, she has been more than a literary colleague; she has been a mentor, an elder sister, a guiding presence in the lives of many who have navigated the British literary landscape. Her guidance is not prescriptive but nurturing. She holds you under her care with a quiet, powerful love that encourages growth, fosters confidence, and cultivates resilience. Her influence extends far beyond her own work, it has shaped entire communities of writers, poets, and storytellers who have benefitted from her wisdom, generosity, and unwavering support.

Shamim Azad (Apa) was born in Bangladesh and has spent much of her life straddling worlds, both geographically and culturally. Her writing embodies the tension and the beauty of this duality, exploring the personal, the political, and the historical with equal depth. In her poetry, one finds a celebration of women’s strength and resilience, an acknowledgement of the struggles of migration, and a deep engagement with memory and historical trauma.
As we explore her poetry in this article, we not only encounter the beauty of her language and imagery but also trace the contours of her life, her values, and her dedication to the community she represents. Her poems reveal her sensitivity to history, identity, gender, and diaspora, offering readers an intimate yet expansive view of human experience.

I will be honoured to discuss some of the poems published here, though I am not sure if I am qualified to critique her works. Yet, I write with the courage that I have always drawn from her.
Let us begin with her poem The Fruit Woman (the complete collection of her poems can be found in another post: A Collection of Poetry by Shamim Azad).
I would like to share a few lines from The Fruit Woman:
“Your fruits are your busy breasts
filled with the juice of life inside.
Your curious brain has fruits of fire and flame.”

Shamim Azad uses fruit as an extended metaphor for women’s vitality, creativity, and intellect. The imagery seamlessly combines the physical and the cerebral, linking nurture with thought. Her style is free verse, with irregular line lengths that mirror the natural rhythm of thinking and movement. The tone is celebratory, blending admiration with a sacred sense of women’s generative power.
The poem Plaka’s Perfume demonstrates Shamim Azad’s diasporic sensitivity and her remarkable ability to find unity in diversity. Through simple, reflective imagery, the poem conveys a profound sense of universality. Her free-flowing rhythm and clear diction make the poem both accessible and meaningful, emphasising the shared human experience that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries.
“The cows and their creed
may be different in places,
But the colour of their milk
is the same, regardless.”

The poem uses milk as a metaphor for shared human essence and unity across cultures. While “cows and their creed” represent diversity (religion, nationality, or cultural identity), the “same colour of their milk” symbolises fundamental similarity and common humanity. It is a simple yet profound metaphor that conveys universality through everyday imagery.

Her work combines accessible imagery with philosophical depth, using natural objects to reflect on human connections. The poem’s style and rhythm support the gentle, reflective tone, making it both relatable and evocative.
And
“I wake up in the middle of a humid Athenian night
as the notes of a Greek ballad fade
from under an ancient Sycamore tree.”

The above lines are from the poem Consent. Here, blends personal consciousness with historical memory. The sensory imagery of humid night, fading music, and an ancient tree evokes temporality and place. Free verse allows for introspection and movement, bridging personal experience with collective memory, especially in contexts of trauma and resilience.
In her poems, one often encounters a delicate balance between the lyrical and the narrative. She can move seamlessly from an intimate depiction of personal experience to broader reflections on society and culture. This duality is what makes her work particularly compelling: it is rooted in lived experience but expansive in vision. Her imagery, whether describing a cityscape, a marketplace, or a quiet moment of domesticity, is vivid, precise, and evocative, yet it never overwhelms the emotional core of the poem.

While reading the poem Pardon Me, it becomes clear that the tone is reflective and resolute, delving into moral complexities. Shamim Azad’s language is direct, yet rhythmically subtle, allowing the weight of memory and emotion to resonate deeply.
“People say, forgiveness is a divine virtue
It puts you in a higher place than the criminal, the sinner.”

Across her body of work, her poetry demonstrates a masterful use of metaphor, vivid imagery, and free verse, with a lyrical quality that makes her voice both intimate and universal.
In Altab Ali, Shamim Azad gives poetic voice to a tragedy that shaped the consciousness of the British Bangladeshi community. The poem is based on the real-life murder of Altab Ali, a young Bangladeshi garment worker who was killed in a racially motivated attack in Whitechapel, East London, in 1978. His death became a turning point, sparking anti-racist movements and symbolising the struggles and resilience of migrant communities in Britain.
“He was fearless and perhaps a little bit careless
and never thought people could simply murder
just because you are different from them.”

Shamim Azad’s tone is both personal and historical, using narrative free verse to humanise a figure who has often been remembered only through headlines. Through Altab Ali’s humble routines, cooking tea, listening to Baul songs, wearing his “moth-ball smelling jungle-printed shirt”, she restores his ordinariness, which makes the loss all the more devastating.
Another beautiful piece, Shakespeare’s Funeral, absolutely amazes me with its creativity and powerful metaphoric depth, which makes her even more distinctive and widely accepted in the literary world.
“His greedy words are like a swarm of mosquitoes
have sucked my blood, worn me out.”

In this poem, language itself becomes predatory, with Shakespeare’s vast legacy portrayed as both inspiring and exhausting. The lines offer a playful yet serious commentary on translation, the burden of literary inheritance, and the challenges of interpretation. Azad uses long, conversational lines infused with humour and sharp observation, allowing the rhythm to shift fluidly between irony and reverence.
The poem Authentic Seed takes a deep, reflective breath, with soft repetition and a rhythm that reflects the oral storytelling tradition.
“My mother’s shaky hand
pressed me a seed into my hand
and whispered, ‘carry on my mother’s trail.’”

The seed symbolises heritage, both biological and spiritual, and serves as a powerful emblem of survival, identity, and continuity across generations of women. Written in free verse, the poem is tender, ancestral, and filled with quiet strength, celebrating a matrilineal legacy of endurance.

Finally, I feel a sense of relief and delight in reading the poem Being, which serves as my closing reflection on Shamim Azad’s poetry:
“Life can look like
a bundle of mingled yarn
tightly tangled and inseparable.”

In Being, life is likened to tangled yarn, an image of complexity, confusion, and beauty. The short, fragmented lines create visual and rhythmic tension that mirrors the poem’s theme, which is philosophical, meditative, and quietly accepting. Through this graceful simplicity, Azad captures the paradox of human experience with remarkable clarity.

Across these poems, Shamim Azad demonstrates her skill with metaphor, imagery, and free verse, creating work that is both intimate and universally resonant. Her poetry engages deeply with women’s lives, diasporic experience, moral questions, and human resilience, while maintaining a lyrical, reflective, and accessible style. Reading her work is to encounter a voice that is at once gentle and forceful, personal and communal, celebratory and contemplative.
Throughout our shared decades in the UK literary landscape, Shamim Apa has been not just a collaborator but a constant source of inspiration. Working alongside observing her disciplined approach to writing, her unwavering dedication to storytelling, and her boundless curiosity about people and the world has been profoundly formative for me and for countless others. Her life and work embody the principle that creativity is both a duty and a joy, and that literature holds the power to sustain, to challenge, and to transform. As we continue to read her verses, we uncover more of the depth and power of her imaginative literary world. Let us now turn to her next poem, which offers us an extraordinary glimpse into that vision.

Over the years, Shamim Azad has published an impressive body of work across multiple genres, reflecting her versatility and commitment to literature. In English, she has written children’s books such as Boogley the Burgundy Cheetah (Arial Publication) and Mr Aziz and his Life (collaborative, Magic Me). Her novels include The Voxal Corus (group, Complete Dot Com Novel) and The Ancestral Embryo (translated by Selim Jahan, unpublished). She has co-authored plays such as The Raft and The Hops Cotch Ghost with Mary Cooper, and she has contributed poetry collections including Home from Home (with Simon Etter), The Velocity, Twenty-Five Years of British Poetry (Apples & Snakes), British Bangladeshi Poetry (Agami Publication), The Other Side, British South Asian Poetry (edited by Debjanee Chatterji), The Majestic Night (compiled by Carolyne Wright), A Poets’ Agora (Athens), and Sing Silver Tongue.
Shamim Azad has also been instrumental as an editor, bringing together voices and stories that might otherwise have been overlooked. Her editorial projects include British Bangladeshi Poetry (with Stephen Watts) and Voyages of Bangladeshi Writers (Wear). Beyond these, her contributions to Bengali publications and projects like Bijoyphool have further cemented her role as a bridge between cultures, promoting literary heritage, education, and creative outreach within both the British and Bangladeshi communities.

Beyond her literary contributions, Shamim Apa has played an essential role in shaping the identity of British-Bangladeshi literature. She has been at the forefront of making space for diverse voices, promoting cross-cultural understanding, and mentoring emerging writers who navigate multiple languages and cultural contexts. Her involvement in projects like Bijoyphool highlights her commitment not only to literature but also to education, community engagement, and cultural preservation.

What makes Shamim Azad unique is not only her prolific output but her unwavering dedication to fostering community and nurturing talent. She has worked tirelessly to create spaces where writers, poets, and storytellers can find mentorship, encouragement, and recognition. Through her readings, workshops, and performances, she has brought poetry and storytelling to life, making literature accessible and inspiring for multiple generations. Her mentorship is infused with affection and an almost tangible sense of protection; she embodies the role of an elder sister in the most authentic sense, offering guidance, warmth, and gentle accountability to all who come under her influence.
Her style of writing, whether in poetry, prose, or drama, is distinguished by several hallmarks: the inventive use of metaphor, the musicality of her lines, and a keen attention to imagery that engages the senses. She frequently writes in free verse, which gives her the flexibility to explore complex ideas and emotions without being constrained by form. Her metaphors often bridge personal and collective experience, as when she describes the fruits of a woman’s body as simultaneously nurturing and intellectual, or when she draws on natural phenomena to comment on historical or political events. These choices allow her work to resonate on multiple levels, inviting readers to reflect on the intersections of identity, history, and creativity.

It is impossible to overstate the depth of her influence. For me personally, Shamim Apa has been a sister, a mentor, and a guiding light. Her presence has created a space where creative life is honoured, nurtured, and celebrated. She has taught that literature is not just about writing; it is about living fully, engaging deeply with the world, and giving generously of oneself to others. Through her work, she has shown that poetry can be a force for empathy, understanding, and resilience, bridging the personal and the collective in ways that are profoundly moving.

In reflecting on Shamim Azad (Apa) and her remarkable life, it is clear that her legacy is multifaceted. She is a poet, a storyteller, a playwright, a translator, an editor, and an educator. Yet beyond these roles lies her true gift: the ability to inspire, to nurture, and to illuminate the path for others. Her poetry, rich in metaphor, imagery, and lyrical rhythm, continues to resonate with readers across generations and geographies. Her mentorship has cultivated talent, her projects have built communities, and her presence has offered guidance, warmth, and unwavering support.

To celebrate Shamim Apa is to celebrate a life lived fully in the service of creativity, community, and cultural dialogue. Her work bridges continents and languages, history and memory, intellect and emotion. She is a living testament to the power of literature to sustain, to challenge, and to transform. For all who have had the privilege of knowing her, working with her, or reading her work, she remains an irreplaceable figure, a source of inspiration, a guardian of literary culture, and, most profoundly for me, an elder sister in the truest and most enduring sense.

I wish I could write as fluently and be as inspired as she has made me feel through her work. On her 74th birthday, I offer this humble tribute, along with my deepest respect, admiration, and love.

Faruk Ahmed Roni
Poet, Writer and Editor
Global Poet and Poetry

Copyright@Faruk Ahmed Roni

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