Pakistan’s Anglophone Poetry: Struggling for Recognition Amid a Rich Literary Landscape
Pakistan is often celebrated as a nation of poets, and this reputation is well-earned. Urdu poetry permeates every layer of society—across regions, social classes, and generations. Its couplets are memorised, recited, sung, shared online, and woven into cultural rituals. A verse can effortlessly move from a mushaira to a wedding, from a TV studio to a WhatsApp status, retaining its resonance and cultural weight. By contrast, English poetry produced in Pakistan occupies a far more tenuous and marginalized space.
This divide is rooted in historical developments. After independence, the state actively promoted Urdu as a national language, using it to unify the country and to counter colonial linguistic hierarchies. This policy not only standardized the language but also cultivated a coherent literary public. Poets from distant cities—Faiz Ahmad Faiz from Sialkot and Ahmad Faraz from Kohat—could write in mutually intelligible registers, understood by a shared readership. Urdu poetry, while diverse in style and voice, remained part of a vibrant literary ecosystem, continuously nurturing new generations of writers, as noted by Dr. Nomanul Haq in Towards the Pebbled Shore.
English, in contrast, developed along a different trajectory. As a colonial language, it retained an official status but became socially stratified, associated with elitism, bureaucracy, and professional advancement. “In pre-Partition South Asia, Persian was considered the language of elitism, not English,” explains Sirajuddin Aziz, a senior banker, columnist, and poet. “English was never the court language, so it lacked that symbolic cultural power. In India, it was made a second state language to unify the country, but we in Pakistan never replicated that.”
Over time, English accrued prestige as a marker of status, yet remained largely removed from everyday cultural life. Aziz adds, “English in Pakistan is identified with elitism. Even when our command of it is imperfect, we prize it socially. Yet our educational system undercuts its literary potential. Many Master’s-level graduates I interview cannot name a single canonical author in English. Poetry needs readers as much as writers—people capable of interpreting subtle meanings and connecting works to broader literary traditions.”
With the rise of the internet and global media, many Pakistani writers have gravitated toward English, producing work across fiction, essays, journalism, and criticism with a uniquely local voice. Scholars argue that Pakistani literature in English has matured into a distinct and valuable tradition, performing key functions: curatorial (through experimentation with style and genre), normative (by exemplifying ideas and wisdom), and dialogical (by engaging with other literary cultures). Yet, specifically in poetry, this tradition remains fragmented, under-read, and loosely institutionalized.
Historically, South Asian English poetry emerged before independence, drawing on epic, metaphysical, and romantic influences, though lacking the formal rigor of the ghazal. Pakistani English poetry gained momentum in the 1930s, with works like Shahid Suhrawardy’s Essays in Verse (1937), and continued to evolve post-1947. Its strength derives not from a single style but from the diversity and richness of practice. Many seminal works appeared in the 1970s.
Prominent Anglophone poets—from Taufiq Rafat to Adrian A. Husain, whose Knife of the Tide (2025) is a recent example—demonstrate the tradition’s persistence. Contemporary poets, both within Pakistan and abroad, continue to write and circulate work. Platforms such as Aleph Review, Tales from Karachi, and Instagram accounts by poets like Noor Unnahar provide visibility, while spoken-word initiatives like Spoken Stage (led by Mariam Paracha) and The Poem Foundry (led by Zain Alizai) experiment with live performance and public engagement. Diaspora poets such as Fatima Ijaz and Adeeba Shahid Talukder actively contribute to the local ecosystem as mentors, editors, and interlocutors.
Despite these efforts, English poetry in Pakistan struggles to reach a substantial readership. Unlike fiction, poetry rarely sells or sustains long-term engagement. Social media prioritizes rapid consumption and fleeting attention, leaving poems liked and shared but rarely studied in depth. Without a committed readership, canon formation becomes nearly impossible.
The infrastructure for English poetry also remains weak. Many poets work in isolation, lacking mentorship, editorial support, and critical engagement. Fatima Ijaz observes, “In Pakistan, English is often treated as a functional or professional language, not a literary one. For poetry to thrive, it must be presented as an intellectual practice, taught formally, and discussed critically, not just read at occasional events.”
Many contemporary poets come from non-literary backgrounds—Haseeb Sultan, a dentist, and Ammara Younas, a zoologist, have nonetheless received international recognition. Yet without institutional support—workshops, syllabi, review cultures, and archives—poetic craft struggles to develop, reducing poetry to brief emotional bursts rather than disciplined practice.
This situation contrasts sharply with Urdu poetry, which benefits from social, oral, and formal training through mushairas. English poetry lacks such collective apprenticeship, relying instead on private reading and references, which often makes it inaccessible. Universities seldom include contemporary Pakistani poetry in English in curricula, publishers hesitate to invest, and archival practices are weak, resulting in a fragile literary memory. Additionally, English carries social baggage—being associated with elitism—while Urdu is perceived as culturally authentic, further complicating its literary standing.
Anglophone Pakistani poetry faces a double bind: abroad it is “too Pakistani,” steeped in local references; at home, it is seen as “not Pakistani enough.” The result is fragmentation: small journals, diaspora recognition, and incoherent local scenes.
Yet, there are signs of hope. Programs like the National Youth Poets Laureate Pakistan support young poets aged 16–25 through mentorship, portfolio development, and workshops. Community-led initiatives such as the Dead Poets Society of Pakistan foster connections among local and diaspora poets, offering emerging writers avenues for engagement and growth.
For Anglophone poetry to evolve from fragmentation to coherence, deliberate investment is needed: formal teaching, critical discussion, risk-taking by publishers, institutional support, and active preservation of work. Only through structured cultivation can poetry in English gain the readership, critical attention, and cultural legitimacy that it deserves in Pakistan.