Poetry has an ability to give voice over the roar of the world. Communication Professor Sharaf Rehman has been sharing his experiences through many art forms, including poems.
“The Vietnam War was going on and it was a big concern for the young people and, of course, I was very vocal about that,” Rehman said. “The Civil Rights Movement was going on in this country, which means, the tension between the white people and black people and the discrimination and prejudice was there. Those are kind of things that made me write about some of the things and some of the poetry came from that.”
Rehman is originally from India, lived in Europe for most of his life, and came to legacy institution UT Brownsville (now UTRGV) nine years ago. He has multiple degrees ranging from education to communication.
He has published poetry and plays, including the drama “Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: A Love Story.”
His latest poetry collection, “The Naked Clown,” will feature English and Polish text. It is scheduled for release around October.
“It is my poetry that I have written over the last 50 years,” Rehman said. “There are poems about love, there are poems about prejudice and discrimination and anger and war and human suffering and so on and so forth. And it’s trying to, as you know when we write, especially when we are trying to write poetry, we are trying to look at ourselves in a mirror and see ourselves for what we really are and I think poetry is an excellent way … of getting to know yourself.”
Rehman previously published a collection called “Looking for Company,” which is available for sale online.
“Somebody in Poland saw that and they asked me if they can translate some of them into Polish,” he said. “And I was, of course, flattered and very pleased to hear that … and they took some poems from that collection and then I gave them some newer poems.”
The publication of the work will be made possible by people who wanted to help Rehman with editing and translating.
Janna Dzionek, who translated the work, is an accomplished writer.
“She’s editor-in-chief of a journal, an academic journal in Poland,” Rehman said. “A Polish professor of literature has written an essay that also will be in the book and he has described richness of the language in her translations.”
UTRGV English Professor Mimosa Stephenson edited the English version and also wrote the introduction to the book. “It is going to be a bilingual book,” he said.
Lodz University Press in Poland will publish the collection, which is in the final stages of production.
“The earliest poems in there are from 1968 … and some of them are as recent as from mid-last year,” Rehman said.
In compiling the collection, he would look at his past work and want to change it.
“I had an opportunity to go back and change some of the text in the old poems because now, they’re going to now, you know, it becomes a new thing,” he said. “It is a nice feeling, it is a good sense of accomplishment, and one hopes there aren’t any typos in it, you know, and there aren’t any silly little mistakes like that in the book, but I have token faith and trust in the people that are putting the book together.”
Rehman hopes the book will be completed in time for an exhibition UTRGV will have in October.
“[The publishers] are hoping to have a release of the book in October sometime and they are trying to work it, so the university is trying to have an exhibition of my photographs,” he said.
Rehman believes that anyone can be a writer.
“I’d say just write, keep writing. … Write every day, make it habit. You do not become a tennis player in one day,” Rehman said. “Why would we think you can become a writer in one day, right?”
