1
POETIC TRAJECTORIES
Critical introduction
Land, like language, is inherited.
(Ma.mnd Darwlsh, “The Tragedy of Narcissus
The Comedy of Silver,” 2004, p. 174)Arabic poetry in context
Although poetry is no longer the “Arab dlwmn,” the record and archive of Arab
life stories, aspirations, feats, and wars, as it was of ancient times,^1 it remains
formatively present in Arab life and thought. It is still acclaimed by some as
central to a so-called Arab frame of mind. Some Arab critics go so far as to claim
that the pre-Islamic and early Islamic celebration of fu.nlahpoetry is behind
egocentric poetics in modern Arabic writing,^2 and is responsible for the emer-
gence of patriarchs and dictators.^3 Although attesting to the cultural power of
poetry and its rhetorical impact, this claim lacks cultural nuance, for hierarchic
tradition at large uses masculine terms and measures to enforce its presence. The
claim resonates, however, with recognition of poetry and poets as effectively
present in Arab life and culture. It also draws attention to the limitation of such
a frame of reference, for it has obviously the pre-Islamic Ode or qaxldahin mind
in the first place. Whereas remaining central to cultural and pure literary
discussions even after the disintegration of the Arab/Islamic center (i.e. 1258,
the fall of Baghdad), the sole focus on the qaxldahcan be very limiting to any
rigorous reading of Arab culture, its many trajectories, issues, and complex
composition. Yet, in terms of literary discussions, it is so pivotal for literary
coteries and controversies that it warrants a brief note on its formal structure.
The poetic form, the Ode or the qaxldah, accommodates a variety of themes
that also decide meters and formulas, however. As the great Arab prosodist al-
Khalll Ibn A.mad (d. 786) demonstrates in his pioneering reading of ancient
Arabic poetry, his codification of meters on the basis of feet and root, there are
sixteen meters of Arabic verse acceptably practiced. Meters vary in line length;
but the line, as a number of musically patterned syllables or feet, is divided
into two balanced hemistichs that hold the poem together. The rhyme scheme