Songs of Silence

The poems in this collection give voice to many different people - to fighters, lovers, the past and the future. Sabir Abdus Samee paints the colors of surprising emotions - of the bluish body of a Bangladeshi pilot falling to earth, the white flower of nostalgia for a ravaged Bengal, the red light of lust turning up in a living room. He takes on historical moments, and modern dilemmas and in none of the poems does he turn away from pain, but faces it head on in its many different guises. A promising collection. Catherine Temma Davidson