Author: Hana Tiro
At the Cifte Hamam in Skopje.
Fahredin Shehu was born in Rahovec in Kosovo, in 1972. He graduated from Prishtina University with a degree in Oriental Studies and then an M.A. in Literature, and PhD in Sacral Aesthetics. In the last thirty years he operated as Independent Scientific Researcher in the field of World Spiritual Heritage and Sacral Esthetics.
Shehu's works are translated in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Greek, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Roma, Swedish, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Romanian, Mongolian, Chinese, Maltese, Frisian, Sicilian, Bengali, Bahasa.
Ismail Butera (musician and storyteller from USA) describes Shehu's poetry as follows:
"This is poetry that seemingly rises like a mist emanating from ancient realms and mystical
pathways. Fahredin composes like a bard of old, weaving verses as if they were musical
passages."
Fahredin Shehu’s published books include Nun, a collection of mystical poems (1996); Invisible Plurality, a book of poetical prose, (2000); Nektarina, a novel, transcendental epic (2004, Rozafa Prishtinë), Elemental 99, short poetical mystical stories (2006, Center for positive thinking, Prishinë); and Kun, a collection of transcendental lyrics (2007, LOGOS-A, Skopje, Macedonia); Dismantle of Hate, an e-book (2010, Ronin Press, London); Crystaline Echoes, poetry (hard copy and e-book 2011, Corpos Editora, Porto, Portugal); Pleroma’s Dew, poetry (hard copy and Kindle/ Amazon Edition, 2012 Inner Child Press, New York); Emerald Macadam, a collection of essays, columns, opinions, presentations, and academic papers on culture, art, spirituality (2012, Positive Initiative, Prishtina, Kosovo).
Shehu is a director of Balkan Literature sector of the Kosovo PEN Center, a founder and member of South European Literature Association in Sofia, Bulgaria, director of International Poetry Festival “Poetry and Wine”- Rahovec, Kosovo, and founder of Fund for Cultural Education and Heritage in Kosovo. He is also a Doctor Honoris Causa, Universum Academy Lugano, Switzerland, and Lifetime Academic Universum Academy, Lugano, Switzerland.
His awards range from Agim Ramadani, Stubëll, Kosovo, 2014, Naaji Naaman Prize for Poetry, Beirut, Lebanon, 2016, United Nations Asian Federation of Literary Art and Circles, The Six, ASEAN Internstional Chamber of Commerce Beijing, China, 2020, to Pulitzer Prize Nomination in 2017.
"The subtle contextualization of his personal poetry in the chronotope of the Medieval
Orient, in the kingdom of Ormus/Hormoz, whose etymology refers to the Zoroastrian deity of
Ahura Mazda (Lord of Wisdom) is suggestive of a hypnotic setting. A retrospection of the soul. A
metempsychotic encounter with the like-minded, an encounter taken as pure faith, as an outburst
of the sacral. A memory led by the invisible hand of the unconscious. A poetic laboratory of
synesthesia – mixing senses, scents, sounds, colors, tastes, touches.
Fahredin Shehu’s poetry is the very touch of that sensitive cocktail that is his poetic
language. A reminiscence of the metaphysical quest for oneself by venturing into religious
symbolism. Shehu’s memory is not only his own. It has absorbed other people’s memories as
one’s own and vice versa. It seeks a world beyond this world, far from ephemeral differences and
divisions.
That is why Shehu’s poems are meditative, soothing, and their perfume is discrete. The
scent of jasmine comes from other times, not from our garden. Its melancholy is pleasant. The
past has its own charm – the more scents, sounds, images, tastes and touches it contains, the
more powerful it is. That is why it is a palimpsest. Memory turned into word, into verse, into
poetry."
Katica Kulavkova, Academic, PhD in Comparative Literature-Sorbonne, Poet, Vice-
President PEN Global, Skopje, Macedonia.
"Goethe’s poems were mainly inspired by the romantic Sufi poems of Hafiz, bountiful in spiritual
contemplation. In the Eastern poetry (such as Chinese, Indian, Persian, Javanese, etc), there is
one reality of poetry is its function as aesthetic mode to express contemplation of one’s spiritual
experiences. Eastern poets believe that a true poet never indulge with the reality of daily life and
he always yearns for her home in the metaphysic realm.
It seems Shehu is a poet like that too. Like Goethe, he seeks for the warmth of life in the
contrivances of perennial ambience. Such perennial contrivances see soils in the world are real,
through the poet’s spiritual observance with his meditative experiences. This is my impression
when I read Sehu’s poems."
Abdul Hadi Wiji Muthari
Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Literature
University Paramadina, Jakarta, Indonesia
My luminous Forest
They built the Temple-
the Masters of the Soul's secrets-
for the Princess with the incomparable beauty
Thou Art is Objective
to be lived
to be experienced.
When the Time freezed and
became the Timelessness,
just sit with that gorgeous
building in the front
nothing else to do- just sit!
you shall see how serenity
brings the soothing of the heart and how it
leaves the strange taste
in your mouth
Do you happen to experience the Forest?
Did you ever heard
the hissing of the snakes,
the chirping voices of the birds
ate the wild strawberries
saw the cloud upon your
head formed by the Mistletoe
heard the cracking of the dried bows
covered with the decayed
leaves beneath your feet
collected the Spider's nets
in a tiny glass-jars
saw the rabbit nests
under the bushes and
how Ivy covered the trunks
of the tall trees.
Before you dwell in the sea
of your DMT and meet
your neon color white Queen
as luminous as a midday
sun-ray of July
Listen!
Listen what they have to say-
the Masters of the Heart
who became known centuries after
their disciples unveiled their names
All those bees
the work that produced
a sweet essence
all those sweat-drops fell
from the forehead
the time it all took to sweeten
the bitter days of Men
sleeples nights
long days all burning heat
fasting and adoration of Man
all wheat grains counted
all gold chunks and clogs
raindrops and swnoflakes
the lucids and perplexed
all assembled - called upon
to give sermons and orations
all burned libraries
the libraries all burned
into ashes turned
all forty seconds due death
erased- a grand reset
a preparation for another
augmentation
Counting the snowflakes
In over three decades
I meandered in the visible
semi-visible and invisible
running after the echoes
of you whispering my name
yet I could not-ever-see
the face that would lay
a sigh of relief and the glance
that imprints its seal on my skin
I went on counting the stars and
got nipples in both
of my hands as reward-
the reward as bitter as Absynth,
deliberately waiting
to taste better the sweetnes afterwards
I started to collect the dews from
the Lilly of the Valey and
heard the winds that shook
the barley leaves- leaving
a golden metallic sounds
I climbed the hill, run up
with the lungs full of air and
saw the different colors of
my blood how it turns and
transmutes into transparent
On the hill I connected
from Nadir to Horizon- the flashlight
I turned into
a plasmatic sphere of existance
rolling down the hill on the wet grass
I slide
the summer rain washed away
all my sins that were: lust,
passion, ego, and you name it
In over three decades- on every
winter I counted the snowflakes
and observed how they melted
on my eyelashes
I formed a ball of snow and
swallowed a mere lump of it
to reckon how it became
a fifth state of the matter and
my throat got hot- releasing
the strange sounds of my pre-birth
Here we are standing on the wings
of the suffer and lack of counsciousness
that Life is the most extraordinary and
the Love is Hesh* body
...while we still count the snowflakes
*Hesh-stands for genderless state of the Being i.e. He/She