background, and evolving the whole scene into another dawn of prophecy,
revolution, and change. Poetry is the religion of present times, the new call
for transformation. Yet the personal element is also submerged into
al-Baymtlc’s other paradigms of death and rebirth, whereby all poets merge
into the speaker as his “Al-Wilmdah flMudun lam Tnlad” (“Birth in Unborn
Cities”) signifies:
On the sidewalks of exile
I arise after death
To be born in unborn cities
And to die.
(Ibid. 278–79)Indeed, physical death, whether suicide or murder, means little in the
conflictual context of positionalities. There are “castrated” poets, and poets of
exile and change. The latter look upon physical death as meaningless, for they
are bound to endure in their “blue fire of poetry.” In “Nmr al-shicr” (“The Fire
of Poetry”) the speaker listens to reports of some impending danger, but these
fall short of understanding the potential of poetry:
I was drowning to death
In the light coming from the farthest star
Burning
In the blue sky of poetry
Sharpening my weapons
Playing the lyre
In my death.
(Ibid. 274–75)The “martyr of the light” in this poem is the poet, whose poems, referred to
as “light,” endure, surviving annihilation and physical death. Here, as in the
“Elegy to Khalll Hmwl,” the priorization of the poem, the text, over the
person, the precursor, swerves on purpose from the elegized to the text itself,
from intersubjectivity to intertextuality, humanizing the subject first to
ultimately drive him out of textual horizons.
It is worthwhile at this stage to specify differences between these two
poets, the addresser and the addressee, al-Baymtland Khalll >mwl. Al-Baymtl’s
figurations undergo supplementation or displacement through a deconstruc-
tionist process, typical of the poet. Conversely, >mwl’s poetry grows through
juxtapositions of a symbolic nature, whereby symbols evolve into notions
larger than their origins, to be analyzed, criticized, or argued. Al-Baymtl’s
figurations merge into a persona, which is the poet’s as the very epitome of
the poetry of resistance, difference, beauty, and love beyond time and place.
In other words, al-Baymtl’s persona passes through a metamorphosis of some
sort, transcending limits, and minimizing henceforth the whole issue of
DEDICATIONS AS POETIC INTERSECTIONS