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Arabic Poetry and Terrorism: The Dictator Perishes and the Poet Remains
Abstract
Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati is one of the most prominent twentieth-century Arab poets. His poetry makes a drastic shift from politically committed in the 1950s and 1960s to metapoetic in the 1970s onward. In his post-Nasserist works, al-Bayati interrogates the role of poets and the function of their poetry. This article explores some of the main metapoetic themes in al-Bayati's poem “Meditations on the Other Face of Love,” which was published in 1979. The article argues that al-Bayati consciously uses reflexive poetry as a platform to blur the line between poetry and literary criticism and to declare his discontent with the literary scene and the political status quo in the Arab world. The article also examines some of the poetry by Nizar Qabbani and Muzaffar al-Nawab, in relation to that of al-Bayati. These three poets provide a poetic discussion of “terrorism” against the hegemony of political discourse, and demand that Arab citizens reject their undignified lives by adopting resistance and rejecting terrorism.
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Author and article information
Notes
Khalil Shukrallah Rizk, “The Poetry of ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Bayātī: Thematic and Stylistic Study” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1981).
Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), xvii.
ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī, Love, Death, and Exile: Poems Translated from Arabic , trans. Bassam Frangieh (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), 5.
Waed Athamneh, Modern Arabic Poetry: Revolution and Conflict (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), 96.
Bassam Frangieh, Introduction to Love, Death, and Exile , by ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī, 9.
Aida Azouqa, “Metapoetry between East and West: ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī and the Western Composers of Metapoetry—A Study in Analogies,” Journal of Arabic Literature 39:1 (2008), 39.
ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī, Al-Aʿmāl al-Shiʿriyya (The Complete Poetic Works), 2 vols. (Beirut: al-Mu'assasa al-ʿArabiyya lil-Dirāsāt wa-al-Nashr, 1995), 425. Translation from Athamneh, Modern Arabic Poetry , 93–95.
Dorothy Baker, Mythic Masks in Self-Reflexive Poetry: A Study of Pan and Orpheus (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 3.
William Safire, Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), 557.
Rasheed El-Enany, “Poets and Rebels: Reflections of Lorca in Modern Arabic Poetry,” Third World Quarterly 11:4 (1989), 263.
Yair Huri, “The Queen Who Serves the Slaves: From Politics to Metapoetics in the Poetry of Qāsim Ḥaddād,” Journal of Arabic Literature 34:3 (2003), 266.
Ibid., 269.
Athamneh, Modern Arabic Poetry , 97.
George Steiner, Language and Silence (London: Faber & Faber, 1967), 58–59.
Athamneh, Modern Arabic Poetry , 101–102.
Azouqa, “Metapoetry between East and West,” 39.
René Wellek, Discriminations (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971), 261–263.
Azouqa, “Metapoetry between East and West,” 39.
Athamneh, Modern Arabic Poetry , 101.
Quoted in Azouqa, “Metapoetry between East and West,” 70.
Ibid.
Azouqa, “Metapoetry between East and West,” 39.
Athamneh, Modern Arabic Poetry , 102.
al-Bayātī, Yanābī'al-Shams: Al-Sīra al-Shiʿriyya (Damascus: Dar al-Farqad, 1999), 12–13. Translation is mine.
al-Bayātī, Al-Aʿmāl al-Shiʿriyya , 430.
Ibid.
Ibid., 431.
Ibid.
Ibid., 433.
Ibid. 434.
Ibid., 435.
Ibid.
Ibid., 436.
Ibid., 438.
Ibid.
Ibid., 437.
Ibid.
Ibid., 438.
Nizar Qabbani, “I am with Terrorism,” Nizariat.com, http://www.nizariat.com/poetry.php?id=42, accessed January 28, 2017. Translation is mine.
Ibid.
Nizar Qabbani, “We Are Accused of Terrorism,” http://www.adab.com/en/modules.php?name=Sh3er&doWhat=shqas&qid=330, accessed January 28, 2017. Modifications mine.
Ibid. Modifications to the original translation are mine.
al-Bayātī, Al-Aʿmāl al-Shiʿriyya , 433.
Nasser al-Hassan and A. Clare Brandabur, “Images of Jerusalem in Selected Arabic and English Poetry,” Thaqafat 2 (2002), 222.
Seth Anziska, “A Preventable Massacre,” The New York Times , September 16, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/a-preventable-massacre.html, accessed February 21, 2017.
Ibid.
Muzaffar al-Nawab, “Abdullah, the Terrorist,” Mothafar al-Nawab Blog , http://mothafaralnawab.blogspot.com/2007/12/blog-post_27.html?m=1, accessed February 2, 2017. Translation is mine.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage Books, 1994), 261.
Saddik M. Gohar, “Rethinking Watariyyat Layliyya/Night Strings by the Iraqi Poet Muthafar al-Nawwab,” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities 3:4 (2011), 445.
Said, Culture and Imperialism , 225.
Amilcar Cabral, Return to the Source: Selected Speeches (New York: Monthly Review, 1973), 79.
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (New York: Vintage, 1993), 4.
Nathalie Handal, “Mahmoud Darwish: Palestine's Poet of Exile,” A Gathering of the Tribes, October 21, 2006, http://www.adab.com/modules.php?name=Sh3er&doWhat=shqas&qid=64136http://www.adab.com/modules.php?name=Sh3er&doWhat=shqas&qid=64136, accessed July 15, 2017.
Gohar, “Rethinking Watariyyat Layliyya/Night Strings,” 458.
al-Nawab, “Jerusalem Is the Bride of Your Arabism,” http://www.adab.com/modules.php?name=Sh3er&doWhat=shqas&qid=64136, accessed July 25, 2017.
Gohar, “Rethinking Watariyyat Layliyya/Night Strings,” 453–454.