The Essence of Life
The poems in The Essence of Life are didactic. Most are written about proverbs and aphorisms, and provide a realistic view of life. They take a look at the world with keen observations based on the author’s experience and understanding of various issues.
Proverbs and aphorisms are compact descriptions of experience. As such, the poems elaborate these compact descriptions, asking the reader to go beyond the proverbs and clichés to understand life as we live it.
Readers will find interesting explanations and advice on numerous topics. Expectations from the poems are met with theoretical rhetoric. Those wanting to know full details of the proverbs are shown the sayings as explanations of life.
This incisive book of poetry looks at life from all perspectives and accomplishes it quite wisely.
Musings of the Soul
Musings of the Soul is the second book of poetry by Professor M. Azizur Rahman. A keen observer of life, different aspects of the world around him find expression in his poems. Love, friendship, human rights, employment, nature, socialism, bureaucracy, and democracy are some of the topics he highlights. His expressive poetry awakens readers to new concepts about these topics.
The author’s approach to life is wise and unorthodox. His writings present an observation of age-old subjects with a fresh look.
About the Author
Professor M. Azizur Rahman, Ph.D. Vanderbilt University, is the founder and vice-chancellor of Uttara University in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was motivated to write his first book of poetry The Essence of Life by his perceptions of the time he spent in the United States.
He is a renowned academician in Bangladesh and an eminent economist of international repute. He graduated in 1972 from Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) in agricultural economics, standing first in his class, and then obtained a masters’ in the same field from BAU in 1973. He earned his doctorate in economics with a World Bank Scholarship at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1987.
The author has twenty-five years of university teaching experience at home and abroad, and worked as an economic adviser of USAID at the U.S. Embassy in Bangladesh from 1989 to 1997.
Dr. Rahman is a renowned freedom fighter who risked his life during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971. He is a lifetime member of the Bangladesh Economic Association and has been working for the overall development of the educational system in Bangladesh.