Most of us do not read much poetry. Perhaps we imagine it to be difficult, obscure, or simply something belonging to another age. Yet a good poem can sometimes say in five or six lines what prose struggles to say in five or six pages. A few carefully chosen words can stay with us for years, giving expression to things we have felt but never quite known how to say.
This short anthology is therefore intended even — perhaps especially — for those who do not usually read poetry. It gathers a handful of poems concerned with the experiences of the human heart: love and longing, loss and hope, struggle and endurance, beauty and the search for meaning. Along the way, there are encounters with Tolkien’s Middle-earth, where friendship, sacrifice and quiet heroism illuminate many of the same themes.
The poems are viewed through an Islamic lens too, allowing them to open onto reflections about sabr, tawakkul, ikhlas, our relationship with Allah, and the journey home to Him.
There is no need to be a student of literature. Nor does every poem need to be completely analysed or understood. Sometimes a few lines are enough. So read slowly, linger over whatever speaks to you, and pass over what does not.
Perhaps that is the modest hope behind this little collection: to persuade someone who seldom reads poetry to pause long enough to experience something of their delight and wisdom.