but he is also the muted addresser in such a stayor arresting contemplation.
The identification or fusion of the two gathers momentum in the last stanzas,
and both are one.
You progress a step toward the hall of forms,
toward the arcades of the phrase,
and everything metamorphoses,
everything metamorphoses....
(Ibid. 5)The preparation takes place in a number of visits in keeping with Sufi bonds,
for the presence of the Sufi Shaykh al-Niffarlas a “friend” means that the
persona is no longer a disciple, nor a novice, but an equal in the Sufi stay
or arresting contemplation, like the Baghdadi Sufi Shibllin relation to
al->allmj (d. 922):
And my friend al-Niffari surprises me
with the rose of crimson water
and the glare of sea
and taste of salt air...
I end up craving bread
and wait for time
and the childhood
of evening talk
and the disclosure
and the moment that stuns.
(Ibid. 2–3)Poetic variables: the mawwml and kmn kmnA ninth dialogic strategy resides in the use of popular forms. The mawwml
goes back to the nonclassical Arabic mawmllor mawmliymhform that was in
existence by the sixth/twelfth century.^51 With regard to sung form, the
mawmllis made of four hemistichs of the same rhyme. At a later time it began
to accommodate a variety of multi-rhymed compositions. As it gives itself
freely to songs of nostalgia and yearning, the form is popular in Iraq. The
written form is made of five, or seven hemistichs; the first two have the same
rhyme (aa bb a), whereas the third and fourth have another rhyme. The fifth
has the same rhyme as the first two.^52 Practiced by many modern poets, the
form is deployed to reinstate the modernity impulse of deviation while appro-
priating the dialogic through the use of song shreds and popular singing at
large. The Iraqis, like al-Baymtland Sa‘dlYnsuf,^53 provide many instances in
this regard, but a free application of the form is carried out by the Egyptian
Mu.ammad ‘AflflMatar, who spent some years in Iraq. ‘AflflMatar uses as
POETIC DIALOGIZATION