For Qudsia Akhtar, the higher self is worth pursuing. Her latest sequence of poems is rooted in the journey and the search for the many truths that may appear in various experiences such as the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the myth of the Churail.
The voices guide.
The image of the lote tree often found in Islamic Sufi thought comes to represent the highest form of self-knowledge, which is also key to Iqbal’s Khudi, first outlined in his poetry/philosophy book ‘The Secrets of the Self’.
The plurality of those ‘secrets’ suggests a multiplicity.
Akhtar considers how in the post-colonial age, our selves, spirituality, and sense of unity is fractured.

About the speaker
Qudsia Akhtar is in the third year of her Creative Writing Ph.D. at the University of Salford exploring British-Pakistani experience. Her poetry has appeared in the Acumen, Tower Poetry Anthology, The Ofi Press, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, and Wildness. Her work has been commissioned by the New Creatives scheme and commended in the Forward Book of Poetry 2023. Her debut collection of poems Khamoshi is out with Verve Poetry Press. She explores the concept of a dialogical self: exploring multiple selves, is intrigued by the concept of Iqbal’s sense of the higher self, and the journey of self-discovery.
The voice in her poems remains questioning, critical, and intimate. She has written poems about belonging, the injustices surrounding the female experience, the sorrow of the Partition, the loss and distorting of the 1857 Rebellion in India, and quite recently, a new section that explores the myth of the Churail and womanhood.

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