poetry is no less receptive to other discourses through parody and travesty,
and other means, broadening its prospects while undermining these in a more
sophisticated contrafaction. This tendency is not the same as archaic invec-
tives, or satirical exercises with their “frontal attacks” which are characterized
by bluntness rather than irony and wit.^6 It works within the hegemonic dis-
course to break it down, and expose its significations and markers. Poetic
creativity here self-consciously targets the hegemonic, especially in its
unitary pronouncements, as no other genre can. Manipulating its reserve of
poetics, and relying on a close reading of this discourse, with a love–hate
binary, the creative impulse can build a new structure, at the expense of
the shattered other, as Ma.mnd Darwlsh does in “Khuyab al-dictmtnr
al-mawznnah” (The Rhymed Orations of the Dictator).^7 The significance of
this long prose poem to creativity, dissent, contemporary anxieties, and past
legacies lies in its volatile dialogic space and its underpinnings of satire and
revolt that destabilize the very hegemonic codifications and imperatives that
make up the dictator’s rhythmic orations. This prose poem makes use of the
roots of unitary discourse, its strong hold on, and manipulation of, value-laden
words, clichés, and catch-phrases. The poem targets unitary touchstones,
which have been working within a mechanism that dislodges other languages,
undermines usage, occupies vital linguistic space, and chases out counter-
terms. Ma.mnd Darwlsh probes the mind that manipulates a specific rheto-
ric as if it were the only language. “If words exceed a thousand, speech veins
dry up / and rhetoric becomes corrupt and poetry ends as the property of the
rabble.” The poet aims at the value-laden language in the official discourse
and state media.
Targeting the unitary discourse
Ma.mnd Darwlsh’s prose poem gives the dictator enough space to speak his
mind and explain his suspicions of any language of diversity, insinuation,
nuance, and even dichotomous pronouncements.
If you praise the rose, this means you blame darkness,
In addition, if you recollect the glitter of ancient swords, you blame peace,
And when you mention jasmine often and you laugh: then you
attack the regime.
(Ibid.)Different from neo-historical narratives with their probing into methods and
means of coercion, and more dense and suggestive, this prose poem lets the
dictator disclose his disapproval of metaphors and conceits, for “... between
synthesis and paronomasia the poem relates our ruinous present / and will
establish its independent world, and in the crowd slips away from my police”
(Ibid.). Hence, the dictator sets the scope and limit of discourse, which
POETIC DIALOGIZATION