taking a liminal paratextual space, a prefatory matter to the body or the text,
it raises problems and invites questions. Upon discussing Charles Baudelaire’s
dedication to “Counterfeit Money,” for instance, Derrida resorts to his decon-
structionist practice to look for reasons behind this dedication. He asks if this
dedication on the border is “part of the poem.”^25 To Derrida, “this dedication
only situates...the dativeor donormovement that displaces the text” (Ibid.).
He further argues in the same place, “there is nothing in the text that is not
dedicated, nothing that is not destined, and the destination of this dative is
not reducible to the explicit dedication” (Ibid.).
Perhaps it is for this displacement of the text as much as for the opposite
direction that evolves within the poem that dedications become sites of
bewilderment, uncertainty, or liminality, while seemingly signifying absolute
engagement. There are many attestations to this position, but the emergence
of the pauper–poet in the figure of the Egyptian poet Amal Dunqul (d. 1983)
and the Iraqi Muzaffar al-Nawwmb is worth emphasizing.^26 Descending from
the brigand poets of pre-Islamic poetry, but with the radical politics that was
critical of Arab states and governments, they brought into Arabic poetry a
poetic of personal disinterestedness and political engagement. While this is
understandable in terms of current politics and intellectual resistance to
hegemony in general, the wave of identification with their voices among
other Arab poets deserves attention. A collection of poetry dedicated to Amal
Dunqul for instance appeared in 2003, issued by the governmental institu-
tion the Supreme Council for Culture.^27 Of less dedicatory rebelliousness is
cAbd al-Wahhmb al-Baymtl. His “Bukm’iyyah ilmShams >uzayrmn” (Lament
for the June Sun) was dedicated to the late Syrian nationalist ideologue Zakl
al-Arsnzl(d. 1968).^28 Speaking for a whole generation, “the generation of
meaningless death / The recipients of alms,” the poet sets the tone against the
earlier poetry of regeneration, hope, and rebirth, usually associated with the
Tammnzlgroup, including Badr Shmkir al-Sayymb (d. 1964), JabrmI. Jabrm
(d. 1995), Ynsuf al-Khml (d. 1987) and, somehow, Khalll >mwl(d. 1982).
The whole scene depicts defeat. Although it is the defeat of the “giant pea-
cocks alone,” the whole generation, nevertheless, is held responsible:
We did not hang a bell on the tail of a cat or a donkey
We did not ask the blind deceiver: Why did you flee?Moreover, the whole generation seems like T. S. Eliot’s “Hollow Men”:
We wear the masks of living people
We are half men
In the garbage dump of history.The very act of dedication, in cAbd al-Wahhmb al-Baymtl’s “Memory of Zakl
al-Arsnzl,” is ironic. The Syrian nationalist ideologue wrote a great deal about
DEDICATIONS AS POETIC INTERSECTIONS