Arabic Poetry: A Radio
Script, Part Two
Jack Foley
Last
week’s column presented the script to the first of my shows dealing
with Arabic poetry. It focused extensively on the extremely influential
poet, Adonis. This week’s column combines the introductions to three
more radio shows on the same subject. The first of these deals with
Nizar Qabbani, the second with women’s poetry, and the third with the
general situation of Arabic poetry.
*
NIZAR QABBANI
“I
write in a language that exiles me,” writes Adonis in The
Pages of Day and Night. “The relationship of an Arab poet to his
language is like that of a mother who gives away her son after the first
stirrings in her body. If we accept the biblical story of Hagar and
Ishmael, as repeated in the Koran, we realize that maternity, paternity
and even language itself were all born in exile for the Arab poet. Exile
is his mother-country...For him it can be said: in the beginning was the
exile, not the word. In his struggle against the hell of daily life, the
Arab poet’s only shelter is the hell of exile.
“What
I have just said returns us to origins--to myth and to language. Based
on these origins, Islam offered a new beginning. It dislodged language
from its worldly exile and oriented it to the country of Revelation--to
Heaven...Arab life from its inception has been an exile from language
and the religious system.”
*
Influenced
by Walt Whitman, the Arab-American Ameen Rihani (1876-1940) was one of
the pioneers of free verse and prose poetry. His new style of poetry was
published as early as 1905. Gibran Kahlil Gibran, author of The
Prophet, wrote widely-admired prose poems and poetic prose pieces
which, says Salma Khadra Jayyusi, “released poetry from its
neoclassical limitations and introduced a great courage among Arab poets
to use words and images in completely unprecedented ways.” Abdullah
al-Udhari writes, “The publication of two experimental poems by two
Iraqi poets in 1947 marked the real inception of modern Arab poetry. In
1957 the Lebanese poet Yusuf al-Khal and Adonis launched their
epoch-making poetry magazine Shi‘r,
whose contributions eventually led to the breakdown of classical Arab
poetic conventions and redrew the map of Arab poetry.” Al-Khal, writes
Salma Khadra Jayyusi, “should be termed the first conscious promoter
of modern poetry; he himself gave it the name of ‘Modern Poetry’
(Al-Shi‘r al-Hadith) in 1957...He opened his [1958] collection of
poetry, The Deserted Well...with
a dedication to Ezra Pound, the pioneer of modernism in English.”
In
Palestine and Modern Arab Poetry Khalid A. Sulaiman writes,
“It is
generally acknowledged by almost all contemporary Arab critics and
writers that the use of myths and symbols is the chief influence which
English literature has exerted on contemporary Arabic poetry.
Nevertheless, it may seem strange that, while political differences
between the Arabs and the West deepened with the end of the Second World
War and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Arabic literature
was subject to a noticeable influence from the West, and in particular
from Anglo-Saxon writers.
“Foremost
among these was T.S. Eliot, whose influence was ‘eruptive and
insistent.’ Explaining why this poet more than anyone else had such
influence, the Palestinian critic Jabra Ibrahim Jabra writes:
This
was so because it happened that the people who read him most and
translated him and commented on his work were themselves the leading
young writers and poets of the new generation....
“However,
when discussing the influence of T.S. Eliot on prominent Arab poets of
the “free-verse movement” which appeared in the late forties,
critics usually refer especially to Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land.’ In
an attempt to explain why Arab poets responded so passionately to this
poem,...Salma Khadra Jayyusi writes:
Arab
poets found in Eliot’s implicit use of the fertility myth [in ‘The
Waste Land’] an expression of ultimate love and an emphasis on the
potential of self-sacrifice. It was the idea of the cycle of
sacrificial death that leads to rebirth which attracted them most.
...From
the mid-fifties to the early sixties Arab poets repeatedly drew the
analogy between the aridity of Arab life after the 1948 disaster in
Palestine and the aridity of the land in the fertility myth, saved
from complete waste only by death and the spilling of blood, analogous
to the falling of rain over a parched land.
“Jayyusi’s
opinion is repeated by many Arab writers, all of whom acknowledge a
great deal of influence from English poetry in general, and from Eliot
and certain other writers in particular, on the Arab poets of the new
verse movement.”
*
This
is Jack Foley. Today’s show deals with the famous and very popular
Arab poet, Nizar Qabbani. Qabbani was born on March 21, 1923 in Syria
and died in London on May 1, 1998 at the age of seventy-five. He
published his first poem, “The Brunette Had Told Me,” in 1944, a
year before he graduated with a law degree from the University of
Damascus. Qabbani held diplomatic posts in Cairo, Ankara, London,
Madrid, Beijing and Beirut before resigning to devote himself to poetry.
After 1967 he lived in London, but Damascus remained a powerful presence
in his poems. In his will, written from his hospital bed, the poet said:
“I want my body to be transported after my death to Damascus to be
buried there with my folks.” Damascus is “the womb that taught me
poetry, taught me creativity and granted me the alphabet of Jasmine”;
“This is the way a bird returns home and a baby to his mother’s
bosom.” Qabbani was married twice. His second wife, Balqis al-Rawi, an
Iraqi teacher whom he had met at a poetry recital in Baghdad, was killed
in a bomb attack by pro-Iranian guerrillas in Beirut, where she was
working for the cultural section of the Iraqi Ministry.
Qabanni’s
early work was in traditional forms, though Salma Khadra Jayyusi points
out that his language was “able to accomodate successfully the
rhythms, intonations, and idioms that approximate everyday language. He
earned a reputation for daring with the publication in 1954 of
his first volume of verse, Childhood
of a Breast, but it was not until he resigned from the Syrian
diplomatic service in 1966 that he reached full flower. Qabbani’s
intense commitment to poetry followed the 1967 war with Israel. He was a
devoted Arab nationalist, and one of his favorite themes was his
opposition to normalization of relations with Israel. He wrote more than
two dozen books of poems, many of which were made into lyrics by famous
Arab singers.
In
her introduction to On Entering
the Sea: The Erotic and Other Poetry of Nizar Qabbani, Salma Khadra
Jayyusi writes,
“During
the twentieth century, Arabic culture has known several writers who made
it their mission to transform the world around them. The Arab awakening
to modern life at the opening of the century created a new awareness of
many possibilities. But, because of the tenacious force of traditions
and inherited attitudes, these possibilities remained for too long only
partially explored. It took the work of a number of major thinkers and
creative writers to throw off some of the psychological shackles and
inject new, refreshing ideas and attitudes that set free again the
sources of life and vitality in the Arab nation...
“Among
these rare pioneers is the poet Nizar Qabanni. He [came] from a
conservative family in Damascus...[His] major battle, for which he will
be long remembered, has been against the taboos imposed on women and
love...Qabanni’s vociferous and persistent campaign...has been able to
touch the hearts and minds of thousands of women all over the Arab
world.
“Qabanni
was not embracing fashionable causes when he began his concentrated
attack on the way women were induced, through a narrow conservative
education, to deny their own humanity. He began his campaign long before
feminism in the Arab world became a fashionable pursuit. It was through
his erotic verse that Qabbani first discovered, for himself and others,
the full meaning of freedom...[He] aimed his well-honed pen at the most
sacrosanct taboos in Arab traditional literature: the sexual. He called
for the liberation of both body and soul from the repressive injunctions
imposed upon them throughout the centuries, awakening women to a new
awareness of their bodies and their sexuality, wrenching them away from
the taboos of society, and making them aware of its discriminatory
treatment of the sexes, of its inherent cruelty...To remove the shame
that hangs on all erotic relations, this was Qabbani’s towering
achievement...The Qabbani baptism is like a tattoo on the spirit. It
cannot be removed.”
*
WOMEN’S POETRY
Arab
Indian
dark woman
--William Carlos Williams, Spring
and All
In
her book Behind Closed Doors: Women’s Oral Narratives in Tunis Monia
Hejaiej writes,
“Islamic
doctrine associates women with fitna
(chaos) and orders men to avoid them in order to preserve social order.
[One author] has argued that there is a transhistorical view of
women’s sexuality as dangerous and destructive in its power. Sexuality
outside legitimate channels is a challenge to the system, and order in
the society can only be maintained when the gender roles are well
defined. The structure of society can be disrupted by deliberate
transgression, thus the social codes of correctness are laws required by
both men and women to preserve harmony and stability. In a conversation
with [two young women], it became clear that they believe that women and
men cannot meet without the presence of Satan. They are bound to give in
to their shahawat (sexual
drive). One of them added:...‘Fire and gunpowder shouldn’t get
close,’ indicating that the meeting of men and women outside the
prescribed conditions would cause an explosion--in other words, would
inevitably lead to disruption of social order and security...A society
that perceives unbridled sexuality as the defining essence of men and
women may act to contain it with such intensity that the least gesture
becomes a sign of this hidden and forbidden desire--the accidental
meeting, the scent of jasmine. When sexuality is seen as the only realm
of interaction between the sexes, then other possible forms of
interaction are pushed to the margins, or are seen as merely preludes to
sexual involvement, and no action...is innocent.”
In
her introduction to On Entering
the Sea: The Erotic and Other Poetry of Nizar Qabbani, Salma Khadra
Jayyusi writes,
“The
fanatical stress on woman’s sexual integrity has a long tradition in
Arabic culture. It has made any encroachment on her ‘purity’ a
breach not only of her personal honor, but of that of her male
relations. In fact, her honor is not simply personal, but part of the
family reputation and status; betraying it can trigger immense violence
and fierce retribution, because it reflects on the family, or the tribe.
Was it the taking of women as hostage in the pre-Islamic raids, tying
the dishonor of defeat to the subjugation of the female members of the
tribe, that spread its dark cloud over women forever? Nothing wounded
the Arab man, always priding himself on his courage, more than the
stigma of being unable to defend his women from being taken hostages by
the enemy. The pre-Islamic poet, Antara, puts it in telling words:
In
al-Faruq, we safeguarded our women
warding off the charging horsemen.
Whatever
the reason for this extremist concept of ‘honor,’ it has become
entrenched in the culture. Woman’s sexual integrity suffered the
strongest taboo, and, with the later influx of non-Arab slave girls
through the Islamic conquests, it became more and more severe, as it
aimed at strictly separating the ‘licentious’ from the
well-protected ‘free’ Arab women. From that time on, erotic gaiety
became the prerogative of slave girls, and would be regarded as profane
and demeaning to the ‘free’ Arab woman who now entered the drab and
dark ages of her history. Thus, the whole concept of freedom and slavery
was inverted, turning the ‘free’ woman into a slave of society’s
moral distinctions. It was the greatest deception in women’s history
anywhere. The preservation of the Arab woman’s honor became an
obsession, involving the imposition of ever harsher measures. It was no
longer simply a matter of moral choice, but became the one moral trait
that was never left to volition: it was violated only as an act of
surrender to instinct, in many instances, where detected, punishable by
death. This extreme fanaticism is found in other cultures as well (Kazantzakis’
Zorba, the Greek, is a good
example), but it has been greatest and most protracted in Arabic
culture. This colored the whole history of out-of-wedlock relations for
Arab women, and was linked with a very deep-rooted fear: the cutting
fear of shame and disdain, of losing face and pride, the fear for life,
for survival in society. This fear became an instinct in both women and
men, and it remained, even up to modern times, an obsessive threat to
all women’s rapport with love and sexuality. Arabic culture, it must
be remembered, is a shame, not a guilt, culture. If guilt can be
rationalized away to create excuses for acts of abuse (colonialism and
slavery are rationalized as a means of civilizing less cultivated races
and peoples), you cannot rationalize shame, particularly the breach of
woman’s honor. As the Arab proverb has it, ‘Like a crack in glass,
it cannot be mended.’
“Naturally,
the Arab woman continued to inspire men, and there were some periods, as
in the golden age of Andalusian poetry (ninth-eleventh century AD), when
even women poets would break through the taboos to announce the merging
of virtue with desire. But the majority of women remained the prisoners
of their sex, particularly during the four hundred years of the Ottoman
period that ended in the Arab world with the end of the First World
War.”
Here
are some quotations from women poets featured in the book, Women
of the Fertile Crescent: Modern Poetry by Arab Women, edited by
Kamal Boullata:
Andrée
Chedid: “Love is all of life. It is vain to pretend that other
equilibriums exist. The one deprived of love everywhere draws circles
whose center is zero.”
Nazik
al-Mala’ika: “A basic fear of death, an innate freedom I lacked,
wounds I suffered as a result of...woman’s humiliating state in the
Arab world, consecutive national setbacks and political defeats: these
are the elements that have painted my poetry with sorrow.”
Mona
Sa‘udi: “Why can’t man love a woman without having to choke
her, shut her up, controlling her mind, her dreams...For months now, I
have been feeling a tremendous longing for death, or rather to put an
end to this continuity, but the lucid presence of the great woman that
is my mother forbids me to do anything about it, her love is the only
authority to judge my action. I cannot cause her any sorrow, her immense
capacity for love and for giving is my guide for survival. I know I have
lived over a thousand years and I am yet to be born.”
Etel
‘Adnan: “As for the women, there aren’t any. They all consider
themselves as being the other half of their men. With one exception.”
Salma
Khadra Jayyusi: “In all my life, I never submitted or accepted a
master, or took orders from the mighty breed of men. Our women melt
their minds and hearts in those of their husbands, fathers, brothers and
sons and call it goodness and piety. Until they realize their
responsibility to the nation, this nation will never be.”
Fawziyya
Abu Khalid: “Before the ghost of the veil started haunting my life
The June War broke out...June 1967 was the blade over which I walked
barefoot from childhood into womanhood...Since then I was realizing at
every step that the chains of my people are heavier than the chastity
belt.”
‘Aisha
Arna’out: “When I write, I am in a total state of
unconsciousness. In the past many prominent periodicals rejected my work
giving all kinds of excuses; at times claiming it is ‘too romantic,’
other times calling it ‘incomprehensible!’ Some years ago whenever
my writing happened to be accepted by some pioneering journal, I was
sadly surprised to see the publication either censored by the
authorities or simply banned from the market or it would simply go out
of business before I could see my work in print.”
This
is Jack Foley. On today’s show we will read poems from various women
Arab poets.
*
THE SITUATION OF ARABIC POETRY
This
is Jack Foley. Today’s show is the fourth in my series dealing with
Arabic poetry. I want to begin with a quotation from John L.
Esposito’s book, The Islamic
Threat: Myth or Reality? The quotation concerns Palestine--a word
which comes from the ancient word “Philistine”:
“The
creation of Israel in 1948 was seen as the boldest example of the
duplicity of European colonialism and its desire to keep the Arabs
divided and weak. Israel itself was considered a European-American
colony in the midst of the Arab nation. The Arab defeats in the 1948 and
1956 wars were a further humiliation. For Arab leaders, Palestine
provided a no-lose cause (not threatening class, political, or religious
interests) that each could exploit domestically and internationally as
rulers competed in the force of their denunciations. Military leaders
and monarchs, the educated and the uneducated, the landed and the
peasants, the secular and the Islamically oriented--all could identify
with the plight of the Palestinians. The struggle against Israel
symbolized the battle against imperialism, provided a common cause and
sense of unity, and distracted from the failures of regimes and of Arab
nationalism/socialism. As in the nationalist struggle, both the secular
and the religiously oriented, Arab nationalists and Islamic activists,
found common ground in regarding the liberation of Palestine as a great
jihad against Western imperialism.”
In
Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology Salma Khadra Jayyusi describes
“the post-1948 Palestine disaster” as “a catalytic landmark which
[changed] the whole world of the Arab poet decisively and
permanently”:
“The
question of form is only part of the poetic revolution, the greatest in
the history of Arabic poetry, which took place in the fifties.
Avant-garde poets and critics, who had acquired a more modern knowledge
of the art of poetry, found themselves involved in the many problems
presented now by the condition of poetry on the one hand, and the
condition of Arab life on the other...[T]he post-1948 Palestine disaster
[is] perhaps the only fixed date that we can regard as a catalyst for
poetic change. Substantial parts of Palestine were appropriated by the
newly formed state of Israel, and the Palestinian people were dispersed,
thus creating a new, non-Jewish diaspora. Most of these refugees were
forced to face abominable living conditions, living in wretched tents
and shacks, and trying to come to terms with new and unbearable
realities. The failure of the other Arab states to restore Palestine
cast doubt on the ability and sincerity of purpose of the Arab
governments of the time. Arab intellectuals everywhere felt that the
Arab world was hemmed in: trapped from the outside by an external
enemy--Israel--whose power base lay in the industrial countries of the
West that gave it support in every respect; and trapped on the inside by
ruthless potentates who repressed freedom and blocked the free life of
individuals in many Arab countries.
“Meanwhile
a new outlook on life and art, supported by great critical audacity and
adventurism, was taking hold of most Arab poets...The spirit of change
dominated the period...[This was] the heroic situation of Arabic poetry
in the fifties. On the one hand, it had evolved artistically, through
the unceasing experimentation from 1900 to 1950, reaching a point of
maturation where it was ready to reap all the fruits of previous
experiments and meet the challenges of modernity...On the other hand,
the political climate made it impossible for the modern poetic movement
to restrict its focus to esthetic matters. The Arab world was so
disillusioned with its condition after the Palestinian disaster of 1948
that it lost confidence in many of its inherited values. This is all the
more true because those who upheld traditional values with zeal usually
belonged to the old hierarchies which people had come to mistrust: to
either the stale religious hierarchy or the political hierarchy which
had betrayed the nation and caused the breakdown of life and honor.
People’s psychological defenses were shattered, and there were few
shields to protect them against the attacks that rained down ceaselessly
on the culture itself from all sides...Poetry, with only few exceptions
(foremost of which was the erotic poetry of the Syrian Nizar Qabbani),
abandoned the songs of weddings and festivals, the prayers of lovers,
and the private longings of the soul, in favor of a more communal
expression rife with anger and frustration. This was enhanced by loud
cries for commitment, which rang in the fifties with a sonorous
insistence. Poets in particular felt the need to commit themselves as,
for Arabs at the time, poetry was still the most effective verbal
expression...
“The
vision of poetry was to become more and more horrific with time, as it
slowly uncovered the treachery, cruelty, and aggressiveness of a world
order that had betrayed its human responsibilities. Poetry entered the
long, bitter, and still unresolved struggle against both internal
coercion and external aggression that reached apocalyptic dimensions
after the June 1967 War. No poet can now rise to prominence in the Arab
world who does not make the fight for human dignity and freedom one of
the main themes of his or her poetry...
“Contemporary
Arabic poetry is a poetry of longing, a longing that permeates the
poetic impulse, though it is camouflaged by anger, alienation, or
rejection. It is perhaps possible to say that Palestinian poetry is the
poetry of longing par excellence, of an eternal dream of return and
rebirth...The prime object of this longing is freedom,
the lost love of Arab intellectuals everywhere...The curtailment of
freedom is a constant source of frustration and rage in contemporary
Arabic poetry, and it comes as no surprise that a great number of our
poets now live in exile...What place can there be for love, beatitude,
and joy in this living nightmare?”
On
today’s show we will present some of the poems written out of the
condition that Salma Khadra Jayyusi so eloquently describes.
Jack Foley
|