P3 Poetry Group and Free Linguistics Conference, University of Sydney have recently arranged an international multilingual poetry competition on the theme of Symbols. The prize-giving the ceremony took place on 27th June. It was conducted online and the participants and the judges were present with excitement. Prof. Ahmar Mahbub, Associate Professor of Linguistics at  The University of Sydney and the founder of FLC and Dr. Prasannanshu, Professor at the University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy were the judges of the competition.

The prize-giving ceremony started at 4:00 PM in Australia time and after a brief introduction from the hosts, the names of the winners were disclosed. The winners also recited their poems online. Sami Hossain Chisty secured the first position for his poem “Funeral of Symbols.”

Sami is a Bangladeshi poet, academician, and public speaker who is currently teaching at the Department of English Language and Literature at Notre Dame University Bangladesh.

The first runner up was Ravitej Sing Mago and the second runner up was Roshni Anwar. Three other participants also received acknowledgments and they were Abhik Vikram Saikia, Aparajita Bhuyan, and Warda Sajjad Hamdani.

The competition was inspired by a poem by Prof. Ahmar Mahboob on the theme of symbols which was published in THE Daily Star.

International Award Winning Poems

The poem that inspired the competition

Symbols

Ahmar Mahboob

Symbols divide us; symbols unite us.
If your symbols match mine, perhaps we can be allies;
If your symbols, I don’t recognize, you will be strange – at best.
Through symbols we make sense of the world;

Through symbols, we live our lives.
In language, sounds and scribbles are symbols;
In religion, clothes and food become symbols;
In culture, there is nothing that is not a symbol;
In arts, in science, even in math, symbols rule our worlds.
Symbols make our worlds, whether human or not:
Where some use symbols in the here and now,
We use symbols to escape place and time.

A clever use of symbols, and, lo,
We can go to the moon and come back.
A wise use of symbols, and, lo,
We can create a world just and fair.
A neglect of the symbols, and, lo,
We can fight and feed conflict.
A malicious use of symbols, and, lo
We can destroy our worlds.
Symbols are just symbols, they mean and they don’t mean:
A harmony in symbols is harmony in life;
A disarray in symbols is hell with no end in sight.

(Ahmar Mahboob is a Linguist. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney.)

P3 and Free Linguistics Conference (FLC) joint poetry competition on the theme: Symbols.

Winner of the Poetry Competition 

Funeral of Symbols

Sami Hossain Chisty
 

I went to the funeral of symbols, and I thought I saw a carnival,
But it turned out to be a battleground with their arrival.
There came the priests, monks, mullahs, and pundits with confusion;
 Hours passed by but none came to a decision.

 
Symbols had their way on everything: religion, language, culture, and what not?
But they had always cut the ropes, and never tried to make a knot.
We created symbols and symbols did the rest:
They determined who would be nomads and who would find a nest.

 
Symbols gave us identity cards and they hang on our neck like the dead Albatross.
Symbols were like the cricket matches; they decide your fate by a coin-flipping toss.
Symbols were meant to be meaningful, and I found them innocent sometimes.
But sometimes, they were nonsense like “Humpty Dumpty” and other nursery rhymes.

People traded on symbols as they had always been the best-sellers,
And there were leaders and gurus, the symbolic story-tellers.
Symbols harmonized some and otherized the rest;
Symbols banned the union of Different like incest.

 
Meanwhile, came a doctor who had the news to give:
Our beloved Symbols were COVID-19 positive!
Panicked and disgusted, all the sects were gone.
The corpses of the mighty Symbols were lying alone.

Read: Sami Hossain wins International Poetry Competition

International Award Winning Poems

1st Runners Up

Symbols of Past 

Ravitej Singh Mago

Standing tall on pedestals,

Of marble and granite,

Created in stone and metal,

Their heads and hands held High,

They were there all around us,

Guess we never chose to see,

“they all worked for our betterment”,

Blind to otherwise thought were we,

They were symbols of oppression,

Of wrongs done in the past,

Savages of humanity,

We saw that truth at last.

Disguised in shrouds of glories,

Were all their tainted acts,

Their truths were torn and twisted,

All done to hide the facts.

But when truth came out rumbling,

Their taints could not hide,

They were wrong and immoral, 

Though they were on our side.

Pull down all such symbols,

Of injustice done by might,

Let’s see them for what they really were,

Let history be set right!

2nd Runners Up

I am a Symbol 

Roshni Anwar

Who am I?

In all the world; I exist

Yet different perceptions; I persist

No matter how I’m symbolized

Never have I ever given same meaning twice

I was born to unite

with all the things I Symbolize

Yet no thing exists that I donot divide

The mist on the perceptions

Blurs my vision

To clear it all;

Must you look through the same mirror

Some wear me black when they grieve

Others wear me white when they’re in glee

In west, my wisdom is in owls

In east, I’m Nothing but a dumb noun

Am I a silly wise owl?

On the hills, when I rain

I’m dark and gloomy; all in vain

Beyond the hills, when I rain

I’m bliss for there fertile meadowland

Am I a cursed bliss? Or just an ordinary pour.

On fortnights;

Lovers symbolizes me;

In the beauty of a full moon

Yet Others symbolizes me as nothing but a bane; disguise as a boon.

Am I full moon; lunatic and doomed?

Who am I?

I’m the language of your soul

I can take shapes of, poetry,

art, Images and metaphor

a symbol to symbolize

I can make all the bias synchronize

If you understand only once

Your romeo, my ranjha; your Juliet

All symbolizes nothing but one love.

International Award Winning Poems

3rd Runners Up

Impressions by Reflections

Abheek Vikram Saikia

What are symbols?

An object that stands for a people’s cause?

Or fabled legends, like brave outlaws?

Are they trivial, like traffic signs?

Or a powerful tool to change minds?

Symbols, my friend, can be anything.

They are what you want them to be.

Symbols can always teach you something.

All you have to do, is see

See that’s the thing about symbols,

You can perceive it in different ways.

It is upon the eye of the beholder,

To decide what it portrays.

Symbols can be a weapon that can divide,

But they can also be a tool to unite.

It can be used by people who seek to misguide.

But it can also inspire and ignite!

Symbols can show the creativity in us,

One thing that separates the human race.

Because without symbols I feel,

The world would be a duller place

You can be a symbol too,

Just be true and others will perceive.

Because what a symbol really is,

It’s anything that makes us believe!

4th Runners Up

Colophon

Aparajita Bhuyan

A mark so small, a line so fine

All twirled up or all chime.

Shows the path to one or is a sign of doom to some.

Singing, talking, reading signs…

Hugging, kissing, getting high…

All are symbols of humankind as well as those of the lower dime

Business, studies, political strife

Religion, nation, cults alike…

All are a walking talking living sign

Domed up, heaped up on one and all alike

Want it or not it’s not for you to decide

They are there, marked and engraved deep 

So deep That generations to come would grieve…

For a way, a beacon… a light to lead, to unravel

To decipher the true meaning of these symbols.

As We are the source, and we only will carry the stake to our graves.

So, the Crusade has to start.

The light has to shine bright

To unravel the inner depth of these prismatic symbols.

And only then will mankind reach the salvation of paradise.

International Award Winning Poems

5th Runners Up

what should i do now?

Warda Sajjad Hamdani

tell me what should i do now

i am loosing my mind

you handed me symbols in cradle

this is your religion, this is your race

i was told my language is pure

the words, a symbol of truth

i was told that my race is of warriors

the weapons, a symbol of strength

i was told to act like a lady

petite and polite, symbol of a lady

but now you ask me to forget symbols

accept and grow out of them

all i have ever known

since birth are symbols

now you say that

i have become just a symbol

when it was you

who made me so