NOTESdownplays figurative usage as an “elimination of any sense not confined within
the spatial motion.” For a reading of both terms, see Shira Wolosky, “Samuel
Beckett’s Figural Evasions,” in Languages of the Unsayable: The play of Negativity
in Literature and Literary Theory, eds, Sanford Budick and Wolfgang Iser
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), pp. 165–86, at pp. 166–67.
2 FawzlKarlm, “At the Gardenia Door,” trans., Saadi Simawe and Melissa Brown,
Banipal, no. 19 (spring 2004) pp. 79–88, at p. 81. The reference in the poem is
to a bar in the mentioned street in Baghdad.
3 M. M. Bakhtin argues, “... the language of poetic genres, when they approach their
stylistic limit, often becomes authoritarian, dogmatic and conservative, sealing
itself off from the influence of extraliterary social dialects.” See “Discourse in the
Novel,” in The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist, trans., Caryl Emerson
and Michael Holquist (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 287.
Certainly, Bakhtin speaks of representation and depiction, for “The world of poetry,
no matter how many contradictions and insoluble conflicts the poet develops
within it, is always illumined by one unitary and indisputable discourse.” He adds,
The poet is not able to oppose his own poetic consciousness, his own
intentions to the language that he uses, for he is completely within it and
cannot turn it into an object to be perceived, reflected upon or related to.
(Ibid. 286)
4 Bakhtin, “The Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse,” inThe Dialogic Imagination,
ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press, 1981) p. 47.
5 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences(New
York: Random House-Vintage Books, 1970), p. 50.
6 See M. M. Enani’s valid note in this respect, An Anthology of the New Arabic
Poetry(Cairo: GEBO, 2001), p. 39.
7 Adab wa-Naqd, 141 (May 1997) pp. 97–128.
8Mu.ammad Bennls, “Al-lughah al-‘azlzah” (The Dear Language), in Shaya.mt
li-muntaxaf al-nahmr (Beirut: Al-Markaz al-Thaqmfl al-‘Arabl, 1996),
pp. 220–21.
9 Ibid.
10 For a survey of earlier discussions of language and discourse, dialects, identity,
nationhood, and Islam since the 1950s, see the Lebanese ‘Umar Farrnkh,
Al-Qawmiyyah al-fuxhm(Beirut: Dmr Al-‘Ilm lil-Malmyln, 1961), pp. 77–219.
11 Sharif al-Rubay‘l, “Dm’irat al-Khawf” (The Circle of Fear), in Al-Ightirmb al-Adabl,
ed. Salah Niyazi, 27 (1994), p. 39.
12 Written in 1980, and it appeared in Al-La.zah al-Shi‘riyyah(London: The
Poetic Moment, 1993), vol. 2, pp. 17–18.
13 See Adnnls, Kitmb al-.ixmr(Beirut: Dmr Al-Mdmb, 1985), pp. 67–86, at p. 69;
trans. and ed. Abdullah al-Udhari, Modern Arabic Poetry(Middlesex, England:
Penguin, 1986), p. 68.
14 Saadi Youssef: I Have Trained Myself Hard to be Free,” interview, Banipal,
no. 20 (Summer 2004), pp. 1–14, at p. 7.
15 Ibid.
16 Translated by Khaled Mattawa, in Saadi Simawi, Iraqi Poetry Today(London:
King’s College, London, 2003), pp. 246–47. I emended some portions in the
translation.
17 Trans. and ed. al-Udhari, Modern Arabic Poetry, p. 73.