Shafiq Fatima Shera: The Unsung Poet of Urdu

Shafiq Fatima Shera is widely considered a ‘difficult poet’. That is the reason she could not get the identity she deserves. Imagery, symbols, and allegories are fundamental elements in the poems of Shafiq Fatima Shera. They help in enhancing the emotional depth, thematic complexity, and overall impact of her poetry. She employs evocative imagery with vibrant, descriptive language that engages the senses, creating vivid mental pictures rooted in a faraway past for her audience. She uses symbols to convey abstract concepts, such as power, love, good and evil, or mortality, in a more tangible and relatable way. They often contribute to the thematic structure and underscore the poems’ central conflicts or messages. Shera has extensively used allegories to explore complex ideas such as the nature of power, the struggle between good and evil, or the human condition. They are subtle, woven into the narrative rather than overtly presented.