Owl Of Pines: Śūnyatā

by Saad Ali

Śūnyatā of Owl Of Pines is the 5th book of poetry by Saad Ali. It’s the first installment in Ali’s trilogy of Owl Of Pines. This book is a homage to the Śūnyatā i.e. emptiness which is the creator, destroyer, proliferator, and container of existence itself. On this occasion, the vers libres, prose poems, and ekphrases are born out of the interactions and integrations of the elements and forces—natural, human, and non-human—that live between the spaces; spaces, where everything exists i.e. nature, human beings and beasts alike; spaces that we take for granted and perceive to be invisible. Invariably, this book is a homage to the three distinct forms of the literary art i.e. vers libre, prose poem, and ekphrasis. Ali’s trademark tools i.e. contemplation and satire adopt the respective forms to reflect upon the multifaceted human condition in the contemporary human society, and the intricacies and niceties of existence itself. As always, the book is an open invitation to everyone to observe such a contemplation at the individual and collective level, too.

248 pages, Paperback

Published May 26, 2021

About the author

SAAD ALI (he/him) (b. 1980 CE in Okara, Pakistan) is a bilingual poet-philosopher & literary translator. He has been brought up and educated in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. By profession, he is an Educationist and a Consultant (Academic Research, Management, Marketing & Communication). Ali possesses a broader worldview, which is a result of his experiences gained from having lived in a variety of cultural settings such as Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Australasia. The cogs of his existential machinery are oiled by the muses of arts.

His new collection of poems, Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021), is an homage to vers libre, prose poem, and ekphrasis. He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic’s ekphrases into Urdu. His work appears in The Ekphrastic Review, The Mackinaw, Synchronized Chaos, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lotus-eater, BRAWL Lit, Pandemonium Journal, Immagine & Poesia, two poetry Anthologies by Kevin Watt (ed.), two e-Anthologies at TER, Poetry in English from Pakistan – a poetry anthology by Ilona Yusuf & Shafiq Naz (eds.), and elsewhere. He has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and Best Microfiction Anthology. His ekphrases have been showcased at the Bleeding Borders, Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada.

Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Freud, Jung, Kafka, Tagore, Lispector et alia. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. His favourite sport is putting his gray matter to test at chess. At the end of a long day, he prefers to unwind with the classic/psychedelic rock music.

To learn further about his work, please visit: www.saadalipoet.com (forthcoming), and/or FB/IG/X: @owlofpines.

Reviews

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book cover hints at the variety we’ll find in this long collection of poems: Vers Libre (aka free verse), Prose Poem, Ekphrasis (inspired by art). That’s only the beginning of the variety. The word “Sunyata,” above the title is translated to mean “emptiness which is the creator, destroyer, proliferator, and container of existence itself.” But that barely touches the surface of what Ali covers in this book. We soon learn that in addition to straddling Eastern and Western culture, making a home in both the UK and Pakistan, he covers distant travel and time travel, Western music, existential philosophy, literature, art, the major world religions, and casual moments with friends in bars. There are times we need to read footnotes to begin to understand what others believe and other times we join right in at the party.

I especially enjoyed his poems about travel, since I’m an anglophile, and his ekphrastic writing, since we met at The Ekphrastic Review, an on-line journal out of Toronto. He was inspired by Lorette C. Luzajic, the Editor of that journal, and dedicated several poems to her. He has also translated many of her poems into Urdu and written to her artwork. Ali even paid homage to TER (The Ekphrastic Review) in his poem “Saint Ali’s Asylum,” in which he admits he wasn’t looking for the photo of Van Gogh’s bed at the Saint-Paul Asylum in Provence. Instead, TER “is the culprit, in fact. It (the journal) is rather infamous for cutting your path off.” And that is the highest compliment.

While many of the poems are erudite and focus on Eastern beliefs hard for a western mind to follow, Ali also writes with wry humor. He even made me laugh out loud when he said, “Pardon my French,” for the very reason many Americans say that. But I’ll finish this complicated review with a few of my favorite moments in this book.

Jumping from here to there in a freedom of consciousness manner suits the topic in “Back to my Favourite Boulevard & Café.” It opens with his getting spruced up and driving, then

“But it was Heena, who pulled me out
of my isolation–
after I had committed to a hermit like existence…
It was great on her part!
And I don’t think that
I can thank her enough for that…”

He’s hoping that getting out into the world again post-pandemic lockdowns will inspire him to write:

“If I don’t pen a verse or two
on daily basis,
I feel like a thirsty crow…”

But it’s too loud, too hot, he must “…hang on / until the quieter hour / to finish composing this poem…”

He rambles through the clash of East and West, the problems of his love life, the pandemic, and ends

“I’m
not
at all
contented
with
the
way
this
poem
has
turned
out!”

“A Poem Without Punctuation” sounded like it would be one big headache to me, especially since it was set as a prose poem, two pages long, including a few lines without word spacing either. I was surprised to find it very fast moving and fun. But please, Saad Ali, don’t attempt an entire book of that.

Given that Saad Ali and I are both fans of artist/editor Lorette C. Luzajic, it’s not surprising that my favorite ekphrastic poem in this book was dedicated to Frida Kahlo, Lorette, and Sukaina Fatima (another artist), titled “Time = XYZ (to the nth).”
Here’s a link where you can see the art with the text:

https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphra...