The Pheromone Trail gets the best book award from The Academy of Art, Culture and Languages J&K

SRINAGAR, India - July 16, 2017 - PRLog -- The Pheromone Trail Paperback – by Mohammad Zahid (Author)

The Pheromone Trail gets the best book award from The Academy of Art, Culture and Languages Jammu & Kashmir. With a view to encourage excellence, Best Book Awards were instituted by the Academy in the year 1964. The Pheromone Trail (Paperback) was published in 2013 by Cyberwit.net. Reading The Pheromone Trail has been a novel experience, an eye-opening, soul-stirring discovery for me. The veil is lifted from something that I carelessly passed by and I stand dazzled. I have watched Zahid grow and always thought it was a run-of-the-mill boy. But once in the midst of the colour and fragrance and brilliance of his mesmerizing poetry, the chords of my being vibrate. Zahid's born creativity is reflected, with the difference of degree, in all the poems included in this collection. Right from the first, Amante Egaree (Lost Lovers) to the last entry, 'Reincarnation of Truth', one has to stop again and again and wonder at the sweep and reach of his poetic imagination which touches the borders of the region where the great ones breathe. Zahid's creative artistry is put to a severe test in his ghazals. Handling the ghazal form in English is a difficult and complex venture. It involves the acculturation of a deeply culture-bound form to an alien environment. Modern American poets like John Hollander, Diana Ackerman, Craig Arnold and the Kashmiri American poet, the late Agha Shahid Ali, have achieved signal successes in the field but balancing the multi-layered signification of the ghazal and its intensity and economy of expression with its rigid formal pattern – metre, rhyme and maintenance of qafiah and radeef – in English has proved and continues to prove a daunting task. Zahid is comparatively more at home with the gahzal's indigenous ambience. (G R Malik)

About the Author

Born to Mr. Bashir Ahmad Makhdoomi and Mrs Badshah Gowher in 1977 Mohammad Zahid comes from a small but beautiful town, Anantnag in Kashmir. His father was a teacher and educationist, who had a keen interest in English Language and always urged his students to improve their communication skills and explore the beauty of the English Language and in various capacities throughout his life, had a significant contribution towards education. His mother studied Persian Language in the University of Kashmir. This multilingual and multicultural background exposed him to rich literature and he grew up to love literature. His childhood was spent in the company of books, mostly abridged editions of world classics and this groomed his interest towards literature. He is a Banker by profession and has been writing poetry for the last twenty years. His poem, 'The Addict's Lament' was selected in the program The Sound of Poetry featuring 33 poets from all over the world by the International Library of Poetry Florida USA in 2001. His poem 'Panacea' features in the anthology The Best Poets & Poems of 2002 by the same organization where his other poems, 'Posterity Prays' and 'The Crimson Dusk' have been selected as Editor's Favourite Poems. He has also been published by the Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art Culture & Languages in several issues of their quarterly journal Sheeraza . His poetry also features on the poetry website Muse India where his work has been richly reviewed by fellow poets. He has also been a guest editor at Muse India. His poem Amante Egare was awarded Special Mention Prize in the Unison Publications-Reliance Time Out Poetry Awards in Bangalore in 2011 and was translated into French language by Alliance Française de Hyderabad. The poet also features in TIMESCAPES a collection of poems by 22 Indian poets released by Unisun Publications and Reliance Timeout. His poetry has been selected in the International Poetry Festival Guntur for the last five years consecutively where he also participated in December 2012. He also presented his poetry in the Hyderabad Literary Festival 2010 and the one held in 2013. His poetry has also featured in Maulana Azad Journal of English Language & Literature a peer reviewed journal of Maulana Azad National Urdu University Hyderabad. His poem The Voice of Silence won the sacred Heart College poetry competition and he was included in the Lakeview International Journal of Literature and Arts as a poet and photographer. He has passion for photography and likes to capture scenic landscapes through the lens. He also writes articles on various contemporary issues that mostly get featured in Greater Kashmir, an English daily with a global readership from Jammu & Kashmir. https://www.cyberwit.net/publications/557