LAHORE: One is supposed to compact ideas in short and evocative three lines of haiku as a slight distraction can fade the charm of the whole fabric of the poem.

English poet Athar Tahir said this on Wednesday at the launch of his poetry collection, The Last Tea, at the Forman Christian College (FCC).

Mr Tahir said the title was borrowed from Leonardo da Vinci`s mural, The Last Supper, as there was an element of pathos as well as humanity depicted in the mural when Jesus invited his disciples to the supper despite knowing that one of them would betray him. It was the humanity which was the most striking element in the mural.

The book contains mainly haikus besides English dobras, a Punjabi poetry form. One such poem is `Twenty One Ways of Looking at Silence` which consists of21 dohras.

`There is a similar story in Japanese tradition where a spiritual leader isbetrayed by one of his disciples who gets the master and his disciples killed after serving them tea,` he says.

`Haiku is one of finest forms of literature in Japan wherein feelings of the poet are described. It`s like the paintings of Picasso, simplified but perfect and complete.

Tahir said if he had to treat Japan as a subject he needed to adopt the Japanese poetic form which he found the most suitable to deal with his subject.

He said the title poem, The Last Supper, had been translated into Urdu by Fehmida Riaz.

Dr Waseem Anwar, FC English Department head, who has written the foreword for the book, said at the launch that in The Last Tea, Tahir had tried to cross borders, relating his experiences in Japan. He said the poet had taken up the global theme while making Japan his subject but deep down, it`s Punjabi.

He said Tahir`s poetry had phases which were highlighted in his works where he experienced his own development which made him local as well as global simultaneously.

`Athar Tahir is carrying forwardthe poetic tradition of Taufiq Rafat and Pakistani English poetry with its Pakistani idiom. People take myopically the Pakistani idiom that is deeprooted with its connection with land, he said, adding that Tahir`s poetry had romantic undertones and architectural references as well.

Dr Anwar said that there was a tendency to bracket everything in postcolonial literature, adding that there was no such strain in Tahir`s poetry as there was no element of resistance in it. `Nature, culture and aesthetics combine and intermingle in Tahir`s poetry.

Another addition to Tahir`s poetic art is Tanka poems, five-line poems having the syllable pattern of 5, 7, 5, 7.

Ayesha Barque, assistant professor at the Punjab University, talked about the use of calligraphy by Tahirin his poems to augment meanings and impression of the poems.

Columnist Mina Malik Hussain said it was important to talk about form, as any poet attempting to write haiku had to get it right which had three lines with the syllable pattern of 5, 7, 5.