the case of women poets, of feminist perspectives. In her poem “On the Death
of Nizar Qabbani,” Mohja Kahf, a Syrian-American woman poet, develops
this multiplecritique that enables us to read into the matrix of Qabbmnl’s
(d. 1996) poetry, its celebration of the female body, and the woman poet’s
independence. Qabbmnl’s poetry drew a large readership, especially among the
younger generations. Its appeal arises from its flaunting of conservative
norms, its direct address to the female, and its masculine infatuation with the
feminine condition. It also criticizes the traditional ways and lifestyles, along
with obsolete politics and social structures. The woman poet here picks on
the dominating side of his poetry, and develops a poetic space of anxiety
between elegy, as usually used to celebrate the dead, and her present outlook.
She resists subordination to the elegizing mode as the women’s legacy in the
canon, problematizing the moment instead and coming up with her mixed
register of subordination and independence. The speaker is not after
contrafaction, but she ends up producing a parody that amounts to no more
than a contaminated dialogue. Her immersion in Qabbmnl’s poetry involves
her text in echoes of masculine erotica, yet she also strives to imprint a voice
of her own that makes use of Western feminism. The poem runs in many
parts, and deserves close reading, but here are some excerpts.
No: I refuse to mutter eulogy clichés
I never wanted to hang your image
in a gilt frame over my bed
I wanted to roll with you on the page
in the sweat and muck of writing
Every morning I wanted to see
how you would tug the rope of writing
this way, yanking me suddenly into the mud
or that way, into the brilliant sea
and I, resistant, yanking back
I refuse to make flowered poetry like wreaths,
to lay pretty metaphors on my head
and skip through your books like a gazelle.Admittedly internalizing the poet’s language and critique, she now has to
demonstrate learning through a poetic practice of resistance and opposition.
Because you taught me to be savage,
I wanted to be a claw and tear your cheek
I wanted to write like the claw of a cougar
How can I be the claw when the cougar is gone?
So nobody talk to me anymore about poetry,
especially you who guard the gates of Arabic
and slam it against us who stand outside.POETIC DIALOGIZATION