It’s painful to listen to the news in the morning
You changed me from a poet who wrote love poemsīy boastful swaggering that never killed a fly, Our speech with holes like worn-out shoes is dead. The unnamed verse below, written in 1970, seems as if it could have been written yesterday in half a dozen nations – and in some U.S. Youth by the millions in every Arab country, and each generation since his fame and liberal spirit spread, still compose their declarations of love and new life in the light of Nizar Qabbani’s poetry. His progressive and secular politics and outlook alienated him from some conservative trends in the Arab world, awash in “blood oil” or religious extremism. By profession he was a diplomat for the Syrian government through the mid 1960s. Thereafter, he expressed resentment of male chauvinism and often wrote from a woman’s viewpoint and advocated social freedoms for women. The suicide of his sister, who was unwilling to marry a man she did not love, had a profound effect on Qabbani. He earned a reputation for daringness with the publication in 1954 of his first volume of verse, “Childhood of a Breast,” whose erotic and romantic themes broke from the conservative traditions of Arab literature. Through a lifetime of writing, Qabbani made women his main theme and inspiration. He is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world.” His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion and Arab nationalism. Now, I’ve taken it upon myself to translate as many of his poems as I possibly can to English, granted, alot will be lost in translation, the rhyme, the meter and some of the impact, but I will try my best to stay as true as possible to the original, I feel that it is a crime for these poems to remain relatively unknown by the general public, there may be better translations out there, but I have yet to find them.Wikipedia summarizes Nizar Qabbani (Ma– April 30, 1998) as follows: he was “a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. Now.the reason I made this in the first place is (que long story) I grew up in Iraq, that’s where I’m from originally, and I grew up listening to a singer called Kathem Al-Saher, he’s kind of a big deal in the middle east, though I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t heard of him, anyways, point is.his music was simply beautiful, later down the line I discovered that most of his songs were taken from poems by a poet called Nizar Qabbani, who was also kind of a big deal in the Arabic poetry circuit, so I started reading his poetry, and I don’t even like poetry, but it was beyond brilliant, it triggered all kind of emotions within me (this happened in parallel with many love stories that I went through myself, so the poems were like a constant comrade to me, cheering me on). Hello all, my name is Faisal, and this happens to be my first (official) blog, I hope that this post will be the first of many to come. He who tries to untangle her braids, my son. He who asks for her hand, who approaches.
I assume it’s some kind of flower giving the context, but if anybody knows the exact one I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know-Faisal]Īnd your life is full of travels and warsĪnd you’ll love all the women in the worldĪnd the princess of your heart is sleeping. Tell me.weren’t you tired.weren’t you bored?įor I want to stay in the illusion of the mouth How many years.did you waste, sculpting it? Oh how I wish perfume bottles were not sealedĪnd how did you go around circulating it?Īnd how did you organize the drops of blood in it? Like a sentence spoken and not understood How the night inflates the sorrows of strangers. In which we drink, at the evening, our black coffee. Without the sultan’s daughter showing up. Your love taught me, my lady, what delusion is. That one.whose lips are more delicious than pomegranate roses That one.whose eyes are purer than the gulf’s water
That is all the faces and all the voices. A woman whom I would cry between her arms.Īnd to knock on the doors of fortune tellers