“Poetry is the soul of the Arabs,” says Ghazi al-Gosaibi. “That is no poetic exaggeration: whatever troubles that soul is reflected, magically, in the poetry. Reading Arabic poetry, therefore, is not an idle exercise. It is a trip inside the Arab soul.”
Ghazi al-Gosaibi, Saudi Arabian poet, ambassador to the UK
“The New Arabic Poetic Verse movement started in Baghdad in 1948,” says Frangieh. “Poets began talking about social and national themes. Poetry contributed a great deal to the independence of Arab states between the two World Wars, just as it helped spread a new consciousness in the late nineteenth century in the effort to get rid of the Ottoman Empire. In the battle of social and political change, poetry is a weapon.”
Bassam Frangieh, professor of Arabic at Yale University
A constant in the history of Arabic poetry is its role as a political tool. In Yemen, for instance, poetry is still integral to the process of settling tribal disputes. Stephen Caton, professor of anthropology at Harvard University, has spent two decades studying Yemeni tribal society. “Poetry is a part of the general political discourse in tribal society — and tribal societies are still a very important part of the nation-state in the Middle East, as in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq,” he says. “If you’re going to understand the political discussion that’s going on in the public sphere, you have to be able to tap into that poetry.”
In Yemen, a sheikh mediating a dispute will often call the disagreeing parties together along with uninvolved delegations from other tribes. As the delegations arrive at the meeting place, they voice their opinions and moral stances in poetry. Listening to the poems, the sheikh assesses whether or not there is a consensus on the issue and determines the differences of opinion. “At various points in the dispute mediation, people can weigh in with the moral force of a poem very effectively,” says Caton. “Arab poetry shows us that art and politics are not divorced and that neither is poetry and power.”
“In places like Yemen, there is a cultural conviction that poetry has something to offer politics — that political action is not only about using brute force, it’s about persuading someone, convincing them that what you say is moral and just. They are persuaded in part by the beauty of the language to think so,” he adds.
Woman on the train with —
a Tibetan book?
Heavy worn pages, edges all variable, exotic chunky typeface. Her face compact and brown, sparkling earrings, sleek hair, plump lips move slightly, small fingers turn the pages
tenderly.
Yesmeen sold this to me on Register 3. I paid $1.85.
. – . – . – .
I found out about Gilgamesh. The themes of the story: friendship, arrogance, journey, death. The women: Aruru, Shamhat, Ninsun, Siduri. Sumerian. I want to read it, let it in.
My pre-emptive love song to Iraq.
. – . – . – .
The woman is invisible
in her coat of shame
Our transparent burquas
graceless
ill-arranged
discordant
in brazen black
or shy as white
simmering
heat held in
the veils
negotiate
her relationship
with heat
. – . – . – .
Aruru – Mother goddess of creation in Sumer who molds Enkidu from clay.
Shamhat – A temple harlot, responsible for the taming of Enkidu.
Ninsun – The mother of Gilgamesh, also called the Lady Wildcow Ninsun.
Siduri – The veiled barmaid, who keeps a tavern by the edge of the sea.
Selected results from first six pages of Google search on “siduri”
Ancient archive lost in Baghdad library blaze
Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Tuesday April 15, 2003
The GuardianAs flames engulfed Baghdad’s National Library yesterday, destroying manuscripts many centuries old, the Pentagon admitted that it had been caught unprepared by the widespread looting of antiquities, despite months of warnings from American archaeologists.
But defence department officials denied accusations by British archaeologists that the US government was succumbing to pressure from private collectors in America to allow plundered Iraqi treasures to be traded on the open market.
Almost nothing remains of the library’s archive of tens of thousands of manuscripts, books, and Iraqi newspapers, according to reports from the scene.
But what I find most interesting is the footnote:
The following correction was printed in the Guardian’s Corrections and Clarifications column, Tuesday April 22 2003
The phrase “one of the world’s most important troves of artifacts” appeared in this report. There is no such word as “troves” in English. The noun “treasure-trove” describes a find of valuable articles, the second part of the compound word being derived from the French verb trouver, to find.
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