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Mushaera session
The second session of the program was dedicated to the Mushaera or recital of poetry, which is the crown of literature is poetry and end and aim according to W. Somerset Maugham.
Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.
And for Percy Byshe Shelley poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. It will not be too much to say that the observations of Somerset, Shelley and Emerson were true to the poetry recited at this Grand Mushaera.
I believe that North America is now self-sufficient in catering the literary needs of the Urdu speaking and Urdu loving Diaspora with outstanding and renowned literary personalities and the Grand Mushaera was an affirmation of this conviction.
Urdu Academy’s Grand Mushaera attracted prominent poets from Texas (Sarfraz Abd and Farha Iqbal), from New York (Muqsit Nadeem and Shokat Fehmi), from Maryland (Fayyaz Uddin Saieb and Naseem Farogh) and from New Jersey (Iqbal Danish).
Local poets who amused the audience, included, Tashie Zaheer, Ahmar Shehwar, Farooq Taraz, Urooj Awan, Lubna Manzar, Naseer Humayun, Arshad Rashid and Misbah Rehman.
At the beginning of the Mushaera session, Misbah Rehman, a young emerging poet of the Bay Area amused the audience with his thoughtful verses:
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