Great Regulars: But as poems like 'The Secret' reveal,

the natural world was for [Joseph] Furtado heavy with human mysteries and silences; and his verse can be feminist, too, as when he sees women not just as objects of male desire but desiring subjects, in 'The Neglected Wife'. Is the refrain of Furtado's 'Only Shy' a pun on shayri, as Furtado suggests by his subtitle 'An Urdu Song'? We shall never know for sure, but the best-known photograph of Furtado shows him late in life with a white beard even longer than Tagore's--and as a creator of limpid verse effects he was in the same class.

The Secret

from The Caravan: Poetry: Five Poems: The Secret, Brahmin Girls, Only Shy, The Neglected Wife and Birds and Neighbours

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