Foregrounding through Punctuation Marks in the Poetry of Hamid Khan

Abstract

This paper highlights foregrounding as a stylistic tool employed by Hamid Khan in his poetry. Here, only the deviation occurring through punctuation marks is focused and then the relative importance of such deviation with respect to social implications is surfaced. For this purpose both the poetic collections of Khan were searched verbatim, i.e. “Velvet of Loss” and “Pale Leaf (Three Voices)”. These punctuation marks are as follows: dash, sign of exclamation, sign of interrogation, ellipses, and uppercase character. The poems that carry these projected punctuation marks in “Velvet of Loss” are: The Winter of 1992, April Symphony, Bliss, Space-Scape, In a Café, Winter, New Poem, Window, The City, Waiting, Velvet of Loss, Bosnia – I, N.A. Reflections, Life, Abaseen, Dark Age, Youth. The poems that carry the deviant punctuation marks in “Pale Leaf (Three Voices)” are: Hope, I Wish, Eclipsed Moon, Circus Girl, Africa.