Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition

alone in the desert which I cherish inside my study room. From this

canticle, I derive my filiations as an Arab, and to it I listen whenever

I detect a qaxldahor its opposite.”^7

The specific mention of Imru’ al-Qays’ naslb(erotic prelude) toponymy is of
significance, too, as it, in Jaroslav Stetkevych’s words, “does not confer
geographical location but serves rather to situate the privileged space, the
poet’s siqyal-liwm, in the memory and in the imagination.”^8 The privileged
place as a reminder of loss intensifies the speaker’s sense of alienation, and its
specific presence in Mu.ammad Bennls’ poetic sketch identifies the speaker,
as the successor, with the precursor in an ancestry of creativity and dis-
location. While echoing the Syrian-Lebanese poet Adnnls’ (cAllA.mad Sacld,
b. 1930),pronouncements on the meeting ground between the ancients and
the moderns that constituted his poetic taste,^9 Mu.ammad Bennls writes
down a personal poetic lineage, a genetic succession that includes the poetry
of Gabriel Garcia Lorca, Eliot, Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, Pablo Niruda,
Malarmè, and Baudelaire, among others, who

cut across...[his]Arab lineage, from Imru’ al-Qays to al-Mutanabbl,

or from Yarafah Ibn al-‘Abd to Ibn Khafmjah, and from Jamll

Buthaynah (Ibn Mu‘mar al-‘Udhrl) to al->allmj and Abn>ayymn

al-Taw.ldl. Arabic dlwmnsand writings debate and address a poetic

and writing experience, of a universal stamp, through which I have

become acquainted with the poetic time, which is what concerns me

in writing.^10

While deliberately leading the argument to fit into his tendency to universalize
experience, the Moroccan poet locates his career among a number of strong
precursors who also substantiate a claim for a poetic role.

Oracular poetics

As late as the 1960s poets looked upon their utterances as oracular,
though falling on deaf ears whenever warnings related to pressing national
issues. The stand was not random, as it related to urgency and need, for the
whole situation after the emergence of the nation-state and the overwhelming
Israeli and global challenge propelled soul searching and drove intellectuals
to review the cultural terrain and its endemic problems. The Egyptian poet
Amal Dunqul’s (d. 1983) famous poem “Crying before Zarqm’ al-Yammmah,”
situates poetry in an oracular position where national heedlessness or negli-
gence of governments will lead to havoc. The popularity of the poem embar-
rassed many Arab governments that survived through rhetorical victories
although lapsing into stagnation and corruption. Using the pre-Islamic
Zarqm’ al-Yammmah’s discernment and vision when she noticed the enemy

POETIC TRAJECTORIES: CRITICAL INTRODUCTION