Mostofa Sarwar’s poem “Wake of the Moskva '' has been nominated for the 48th Pushcart Award by the Sangam Literary Magazine of the Southern University and AM College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
This poem was published in the 2023 Spring edition that also includes poems of famous poets like Louisiana State Poet Laureate.
This prestigious award for the year 2023 for poems and other literary genres will be announced in fall. This poem is included in a book of poems on the war in Ukraine, which is under consideration for publication by a university press in the United States.
“Wake of the Moskva” has been well received by poetry readers from across the board. Some comments are worthwhile to mention.
“Mostofa Sarwar’s poem commemorates the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on April 22, 2022, not with a flurry of current contextual details, but with the imagined scene of a mock funeral among the fishes. It is a gateway opening up wider speculation on the “carcasses” of other ships from empires of the past. The poem’s imagery and bridges to the past engage readers directly through precisely chiseled phrases that impart a perspective not possible from any other media”, commented Prof Dr David Haas of the University of Georgia.
Dr Haas, an American of Russian ethnicity, is prof of musicology and a famed author of Leningrad's Modernists (1998) and the translator of Boris Asafyev's Symphonic Etudes (2007).
Steven Plotkin, who is a former Supreme court justice of Louisiana and faculty at Harvard, wrote “Sarwar poem, about the sinking of the Russian ship Moskva, captures the endless and destructive history of the conflict of war. It illustrates that war is a waste of resources and human life. History teaches that no one wins warfare.”
Dr Munir Ali, professor of English and chair, Department of Languages and Literature, Southern University, said: “With imagery blending magical realism and surrealism, Sarwar’s poem gives us a glimpse into the necropolis of destruction inflicted by the greed and ambition of dictators.”
Dr Mostofa Sarwar is professor emeritus and former associate provost at the University of New Orleans, dean and ex-vice-chancellor and provost of Delgado Community College.
His opinion essays were published in The Daily Star and Bdnews24.com of Bangladesh, The Strait Times of Singapore, The Statesman of India, Phuket News of Thailand, The Times Picayune of New Orleans, The Advocate of Baton Rouge, The Acadiana Advocate of Lafayette, The Daily Advent and The Opera News of New York.
Recently, his English poetry has appeared in Sangam literary magazine, The Seattle Star journal, New Verse News online literary journal, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart. Sarwar published three books of Bengali poems.
His book The Theory and Practice of Geophysical Data Inversion was published by Springer Vieweg of Germany. He frequently participates in Bengali talk shows at cable TV channels (broadcast out of New York, Washington, DC, and Dhaka).
