Artistic brilliance with the radiant Shamim Azad
By Emdad Rahman
I first met Shamim Azad at a community event in 2004. She is a poet who uses aspects of Asian folk and oral traditions with chanting and percussion instruments and was specially recruited from Bangladesh to work as a primary school teacher in London. A published writer with over 15 years of experience in working with the community the talented artist has published many books of fiction, essays and poetry.
Borrowing her broad narrative style from Chaucer, her improvisational technique from Rimbaud, and mystically connected to the living spirit of William Blake, Azad has, like these earlier greats, made herself both subject and object of her verse. Her work is poetry without intellectual boundaries, where internal landscape and worldly concerns are metaphysically united.
In my interview with Shamim, she talks about herself and her poetry. Her spiritual quests, her socio-political convictions are candidly and exuberantly explored. In essence we get a glimpse of this wonderful woman and what she is about.
Working in two languages, she says, gives her a different take on the world, but she would now like to focus on working in English. “I would like to cater for multi cultural audiences who can read English. Because I found that once they know my work, they're keen on my work in Bengali as well.”