three poets in arabian kirmen uribe
I juan hermoso (impresiones) AZIZA UMAR JAKWARI
Recent generations have completely cast aside symbolism and each writer has tried to find their own way of expressing themselves. Poetry has become closely attached to reality. Amongst the new voices to be heard many belong to women.
"DIFFERENCE"
They ask me...
Why do you write?
Have you been enslaved by the winds of madness?
Is it a way to pass the time?
With whom? Against whom?
To whom do you carry such expensive scent?
Why do you walk so proudly?
Play your life's melody with your feet,
They ask me...
Why are you so headstrong,
why so much work?
What is all this effort for?
They say to me...
I have broken the laws
and the constitution
I am hard of hearing,
I follow the wrong path.
They say to me
I have set the fire aflame,
I am in league with the damnable Lucifer,
I show my nakedness
They say to me...
(The Confessions of Atabala, 1998)
NIZAR KABBANI
"Free verse" is the name that the Iranian poet Nazik al-Malaika gave to the movement that turned poetry written in Arabian on its head in the forties. The movement constantly tried to renew themes and styles. The Syrian Nizar Kabbani was one of its founding members. Not only did he denounce those who held political power, he also slammed men's power over women. He had reason to. His sister Wisal took her own life at the age of fifteen because she couldn't marry the person she loved.
"A LETTER FROM BENEATH THE WATER"
If you were my lover would you help me flee from you.
If you were my doctor would you cure my sickness of you.
If I had known love was so dangerous I would not have loved you.
If I had known the seas were so deep I would not have set sail.
If I had known how I were to end I wouldn't not have even started.
I fell in love with you and you have taught not to love.
You have shown me how to untangle myself from the roots of your love.
You have shown me how the teardrop dies in the eyes of a child.
You have shown me how love dies,
how love kills itself.
Oh, you showed me the world as a poem,
you stitched the wound in the breast and then cut it off,
if you have ever loved me take my hand.
I am driven mad by love, body and soul.
The blue waves of your eyes ask me to sip,
but I am new to the game of love and a boat I do not have.
I breathe under water, I drown, drown.
Oh, present and past, since the world was thus,
can you hear my voice as it breaks free from the water?
If I were brave I would raise my head above this abysm,
alas, I know not how to swim.
Nizar Kabbani always advocated simplicity, and this caused him immense problems. "I have never worked so hard on the writing of a book. I ripped up dozens of pages of scribbles, I threw away countless poems because they lacked the strength I desired. It took me two months to write a poem that contained two verses of two lines" was what he had to say on the collection of poems called "The Book of Love".
"UNDRESS YOURSELF"
Undress yourself,
down through the centuries
there have been no miracles on earth.
Undress yourself,
I have been struck dumb
and your body speaks every tongue.
(The Book of Love, 1970)
He died in London in 1999.
MAHMUD DARWIX
Darwix is, without a trace of doubt, one of most renowned poets in Arabian today. Copies of his books sell by the thousands and thousands attend his recitals. Palestinian by birth, his aim has always been to ensure the survival of Palestinian literature and to avoid its disappearance in the midst of his homeland's political conflict. He was forced abroad at the age of six and his family settled in The Lebanon. He hasn't returned home since. He hates history written in chilling letters of blood and loves nature, modest people and the homecoming.
"I AM FROM THERE"
I am from there. And I have memories.
I too was born just like everybody else.
I have a mother, and a house with many windows.
I have brothers and sisters, friends
and a prison with a cold window.
I have waves kidnapped by seagulls, favourite spots, forest herbs,
at the edge of the word moon, the food of birds and an immortal olive tree.
I have passed through that land before that sword skewered the body,
that sword that made a table of the body.
I am from there. When I return I give the sky to my mother
if she cries over it,
and I too, shed tears
that the cloud may know me when it regresses.
I have learnt all the words of blood from the halls of justice just so as to break the rules.
The language I have learnt it all and I have taken apart all the symbols
just to learn one word; homeland...
(Less Roses, 1986)
Recent generations have completely cast aside symbolism and each writer has tried to find their own way of expressing themselves. Poetry has become closely attached to reality. Amongst the new voices to be heard many belong to women.
"DIFFERENCE"
They ask me...
Why do you write?
Have you been enslaved by the winds of madness?
Is it a way to pass the time?
With whom? Against whom?
To whom do you carry such expensive scent?
Why do you walk so proudly?
Play your life's melody with your feet,
They ask me...
Why are you so headstrong,
why so much work?
What is all this effort for?
They say to me...
I have broken the laws
and the constitution
I am hard of hearing,
I follow the wrong path.
They say to me
I have set the fire aflame,
I am in league with the damnable Lucifer,
I show my nakedness
They say to me...
(The Confessions of Atabala, 1998)
NIZAR KABBANI
"Free verse" is the name that the Iranian poet Nazik al-Malaika gave to the movement that turned poetry written in Arabian on its head in the forties. The movement constantly tried to renew themes and styles. The Syrian Nizar Kabbani was one of its founding members. Not only did he denounce those who held political power, he also slammed men's power over women. He had reason to. His sister Wisal took her own life at the age of fifteen because she couldn't marry the person she loved.
"A LETTER FROM BENEATH THE WATER"
If you were my lover would you help me flee from you.
If you were my doctor would you cure my sickness of you.
If I had known love was so dangerous I would not have loved you.
If I had known the seas were so deep I would not have set sail.
If I had known how I were to end I wouldn't not have even started.
I fell in love with you and you have taught not to love.
You have shown me how to untangle myself from the roots of your love.
You have shown me how the teardrop dies in the eyes of a child.
You have shown me how love dies,
how love kills itself.
Oh, you showed me the world as a poem,
you stitched the wound in the breast and then cut it off,
if you have ever loved me take my hand.
I am driven mad by love, body and soul.
The blue waves of your eyes ask me to sip,
but I am new to the game of love and a boat I do not have.
I breathe under water, I drown, drown.
Oh, present and past, since the world was thus,
can you hear my voice as it breaks free from the water?
If I were brave I would raise my head above this abysm,
alas, I know not how to swim.
Nizar Kabbani always advocated simplicity, and this caused him immense problems. "I have never worked so hard on the writing of a book. I ripped up dozens of pages of scribbles, I threw away countless poems because they lacked the strength I desired. It took me two months to write a poem that contained two verses of two lines" was what he had to say on the collection of poems called "The Book of Love".
"UNDRESS YOURSELF"
Undress yourself,
down through the centuries
there have been no miracles on earth.
Undress yourself,
I have been struck dumb
and your body speaks every tongue.
(The Book of Love, 1970)
He died in London in 1999.
MAHMUD DARWIX
Darwix is, without a trace of doubt, one of most renowned poets in Arabian today. Copies of his books sell by the thousands and thousands attend his recitals. Palestinian by birth, his aim has always been to ensure the survival of Palestinian literature and to avoid its disappearance in the midst of his homeland's political conflict. He was forced abroad at the age of six and his family settled in The Lebanon. He hasn't returned home since. He hates history written in chilling letters of blood and loves nature, modest people and the homecoming.
"I AM FROM THERE"
I am from there. And I have memories.
I too was born just like everybody else.
I have a mother, and a house with many windows.
I have brothers and sisters, friends
and a prison with a cold window.
I have waves kidnapped by seagulls, favourite spots, forest herbs,
at the edge of the word moon, the food of birds and an immortal olive tree.
I have passed through that land before that sword skewered the body,
that sword that made a table of the body.
I am from there. When I return I give the sky to my mother
if she cries over it,
and I too, shed tears
that the cloud may know me when it regresses.
I have learnt all the words of blood from the halls of justice just so as to break the rules.
The language I have learnt it all and I have taken apart all the symbols
just to learn one word; homeland...
(Less Roses, 1986)
