Agha Shaid Poetry Analysis

Agha Shahid Ali is undisputedly the best ever English poet of Kashmir. He is born in 1949, grew up in Kashmir, studies from university of Kashmir and Delhi University before going to U.S.A for higher studies. He was from one of the most educated and liberal Shia family of Srinagar. Then he got settled in U.S.A up to his death in 2001 due to brain tumor. His poetry reflects multi- ethnic influences e.g. Muslim, Hindu and Western heritages. Shahid became Shahid or witness of the Kashmir’s quest for identity and lack of belongingness. He in a very subtle way showed the massacre, agony and traumatic experiences of people of the Kashmir. As Dr. Iffat Maqbool said, “If there is a poet, It is this. It is this---Chronicler of pain”.

This collection is like whirlpool of emotions for a poet, in which he mingled the bruised feelings of homeland, bloodshed and traumatic experience and political instability of his homeland. The title “The country without post office” has deep metaphorical and physical connotations. This can be called poetry, history as well as autobiography of Shahid. The ‘post office’ signifies an identity of a person, a sense of belonging to place but when a country is without a post office it means a place middle of nowhere. The sighs and shrieks of people echoed back to them. There was a void and vacuity within the valley. As Carol Muske writes, “Ali’s voice possesses this contemporary agelessness. Ali grew up in Kashmir, a citizen of that mountainous country torn apart by violence, its colonial past and present status as a disputed territory…” The title gives the idea of complete loss of identity, ostracized and victimized natives and Shahid laments on this fate of his homeland. In all the poems we see heart wrenching images of valley, women, children and emotional numbness of male folk. They are crying, wailing and helpless. In the prologue he