The Symphony of Life

“The tale of a man is one intricate symphony.” With this opening line, the reader is introduced to the following beautiful poem. 

Click here to read The Symphony of Life.

Hamad is a Pakistani second-year mechanical engineering student at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University who also happens to be an unapologetic consumer of an obscene amount of all kinds of entertainment media. When he is not crunching numbers and wrapping his head around some engineering problem, he is a media connoisseur seeking out some form of sensory overload in the form of a breath-taking film, an immersive and cinematic video game, or a hauntingly beautiful musical composition. Although he is a bit of an introvert, he really enjoys the company of his close group of friends and wouldn’t mind tagging along with them for any kind of outdoor excursions. Hamad is also a huge fan of writing and values it immensely as a form of creative expression that has, perhaps, the smallest entry barrier. He is currently obsessed with the Sci-Fi works of Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) and the glorious rock compositions of Pink Floyd, and his list of all-time favorite artists continues to grow.

Author’s Introduction

I had no particular reason to write this poem except to explore my own artistic inclination. At the time of writing it, I had started reading the English translation of Goethe’s Faust. Although I did not see it to the end, the sheer power of that text overwhelmed me. The rhyme and music of that text and its poetry was mesmerizing to me. A wave of inspiration washed over me, and before I knew it, I was sitting down with a pen writing down this poem. This is the very first poem I have written, and I was surprised at how naturally the rhyme and the narrative content of the poem came to me. Perhaps, it was a story that I had been waiting to tell for years, but Faust simply introduced me to the cadence and language that would make this story as expressive and poignant as I wanted it to be. The analogy in this poem is not novel; in fact, it could be labeled as a cliché, but the reason I was inspired to explore this analogy was to create a pace and style for the poem that reflects the narrative. It certainly felt very satisfying to rhyme in this way and as a religious guy, I felt deeply connected to the analogies for fate and God as the artist. Finally, I would really like to thank Mr. Freeman Tai for helping me polish this poem and Inscribe for selecting it.

Photo Credits

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