Sugar-Coated Pill
Selected Poems

"Sugar-coated Pill: Selected poems", is a work on poetry

'...very powerful and moving.' Tony Benn

'I have long been a fan of Mahmood's poetry - since his first book 'Silence Inside A Gun's Mouth'. His new collection, Sugar-Coated Pill, will no doubt consolidate his reputation as a special voice.' Linton Kwesi Johnson

"It's just the book we need today. Burning bright, as Mr Blake would say, with wit and bite and beauty - a tyger of a book - as my dear friend Andrew Salkey used to say - keep on keeping on..." Adrian Mitchell

'This collection moves one in its voyage across worlds torn with political strife yet creates a new world of the imagination that enables our hearts still to sing...' Susheila Nasta

'I think he achieves what is very rare in the world - it tempers anger with both compassion and wisdom to make very fine poems. Well done Mr Jamal!' Gerry Loose, Survivors' Press

"Mahmood Jamal's poetry speaks of division and its consequences. From the divided self to the divided world his lines traverse the actualities of separation and intimate the possibilities of reconciliation. We live in an age when poetry needs its politics; though we should never forget that politics always needs its poetry. Jamal supplies both in full measure". Ian Syson, publisher at the Vulgar Press and contributing editor to Overland magazine, Australia.

"Mahmood Jamal is an outstanding political poet because he is actually a very fine poet... a master of words possessed of something which we can call 'wisdom'". Angus Calder"

Mahmood Jamal is a progressive poet, filmmaker and translator. He writes in Urdu and English and performs both solo and with tabla accompaniment - most recently with young tabla maestro Talvin Singh. He has been published in a wide range of anthologies, had his work broadcast on radio and TV, and been translated into several languages including Turkish and Urdu. He has been a contributor to the 3rd World writers forum Black Voices, co-ordinator of Troubador Poetry and was co-editor of Black Phoenix. He is editor and translator of 'The Penguin Book of Modern Urdu Poetry' (out of print). His other books in print include Modern Urdu Poetry and Silence Inside a Gun's Mouth.