Books

1st Book

Raat Samundar Khed

Raat Samundar Khed (Let’s Dance with The Night Sea) was published in 2002 by Kitab Trinjan, Lahore and poet Irfan Malik. It contained poetry of my student years especially of Engineering University Lahore Years 1995-2000.

2nd Book

Veeni Likhia Din

Veeni Likhia Din (A Day Etched on Your Wrist) was published in 2012 by Sanjh, Lahore . It contained poetry of the 1st dacade of my immigrant years. It was awarded best book of the year 2012 by Masud Khaddarposh Trust and was also awarded by Nanakana based Baba Guru Nanak Award Comittee and Sahiwal based Mahkaan Adabi Award Sangat.

3rd Book

Sejal

Sejal (Dampness) was published in 2017 by Sanjh, Lahore. It won pristigious STM award sanctioned by Ministry of Art and Culture, Punjab.

Poems in Gurmukhi

Awan Poems – Gurmukhi

My Punjabi Poems in Gurmukhi (Selection from my 1st two books Raat Samundar Khed & Veeni Likhia Din) is not yet published in East Punjab. Thanks to Mitram Manu Awasthy who did all the transliteration work few years back. I am making it available for my East Punjabi siblings. Few other poems published in East Punjab are linked below too.

2.Awan-Sumkali-Sahit-26May2014

3. Awan-Sumkali-Sahit-2015

​4. Awan-poems for Wagah- Aug 2015​

​5. Awan-poems for Wagah- Aug 2016

“Mahmood Awan’s poetry is murraqqa — mosaic — of West Punjab’s landscape, history and its language. He is inheritor of our grand masters Peelu and Hafiz Barkhurdar.”

– Amarjit Chandan about Sejal 

“Awan’s diction was woven into the rural landscape; it was easy and spontaneous. The poetry also shares the poet’s life journey and experiences he went through as a sensitive soul. His poetry carries unique metaphors and similes.”

– Nain Sukh on Sejal Book Launch

Mahmood’s poems come across as a highly creative endeavor. Mahmood’s love poems thankfully are free of impotent sense of loss and saccharine lyricism. The experience of overwhelmingly stormy moments of intimacy in his love poems takes you to the unknown known and the known unknown in the realm of ever unpredictable man woman relationship.

Mahmood is a dynamic poet who has a voice which is distinctly his own. Nimiety of passion running through his poems makes them full of aesthetic and cultural joy.

– Mushtaq Soofi for The Dawn

Awan’s poetry comes together like Seamus Heaney’s‘Personal Helicon’. His poems become the zeitgeist of present day Punjab and embody the crisis the Punjab is experiencing. His love poems are sensually material and materially sensual, they are a celebration of body and land. A poet who weaves a similar web is Pablo Neruda. Sejal
is a coming of age book of poetry, since it has helped Awan carve a permanentplace for himself in modern Punjabi poetry. His poems continue to amaze and enchant Punjabi readers. Awan has become the new face of modern Punjabi poetry.

– Zubair Ahmad for The News

It is something great that Awan would unveil a good quality book after every some four to three years.
He had so expressively described the emotion and feelings in the collection that my eyes started brimming with tears while reading his poems.

– Raja Sadiqulla on Sejal Book Launch

Mahmood Awan is a master artist. Veeni Likhia Din has given new life to the modern Punjabi Poetry. He talks to his beloved homeland through these poems in a tender and soft voice which is unique and delicate unlike Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s loud ‘Lucchi Dharti’. His dialogue with the mother land is that of a child who gets prettier and more charming as his insistance and determination grows!

– Saeed Bhutta on Veeni Likhia Din in Sangry

Contributions (Works quoted & referenced)

Year

2023 (TBC)

Vibrant and the Volatile; South Asia in Verse edited by Rachel Bari et al. (Macmillan Education, India)

Year

2022

Kanchan Kaya: Anthology of Modern Punjabi Love Poetry; Edited by Amarjit Chandan (Navyug, India)

Year

2021

Seeking Nanak edited by Paramjeet Singh et al.; (EduSikh Publications, India).

Year

2018

India, Empire, and First World War Culture: Writings, Images, and Songs by Santanu Das (Cambridge
University Press, 2018).

Year

2018

The Indian Empire At War: From Jihad to Victory, The Untold Story of the Indian Army in the First World War by George Morton-Jack (Little, Brown; 2018)

Year

2018

Legacies of the Homeland by Paramjit Singh (Notionpress, 2018)

Year

2017

San Santali (Poetry of 1947 edited by Amarjit Chandan); Navyug, 2017