Barnan: A Night of Bengali Poetry

We now live in a world besotted with greed, hatred, violence and conflicts where the yearning for millions of ordinary people is love and peace. Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh, known as the Rebel Poet, was equally a poet of love and humanism. His remorse in life could easily be deciphered from this writing: “I have not come to be a poet; I have not come to be a leader. I came to give love; I came to get love. Because I have not had that love, I depart in quiet pique from this love-lorn, insipid world forever.”

Barnan, a recitation group composed of eminent and well-known elocutionists in the Bengali diaspora in the UK, has decided to stage its inaugural programme based on the theme of “Love for Humanity”. This will be a programme based mainly on recitation of poems by prominent Bengali poets on love, peace and humanity, interspersed with narrations, dance and song presentation, with instrumental music accompaniment.