Her association with the latter was also another rite of passage, as the
movementfrom tradition to modernity, from classical prosody to free verse
and from imitation to experience, is not one for all poets and participants in
modernism. “No innovative movement can succeed and spread rapidly unless
the voice raised on its behalf is distinctive, and can arouse a strong response
in others. Nazik, truly, had such a voice,” she says (Ibid. 75). The association
with her fellow woman poet also means an acceptance of the latter’s position
in respect to the need for music in poetry and the ultimate deep grounding
in Arabic prosody and rhetoric. She strives for freedom from “... the bonds of
ancient prosody,” but she is not for the “... abandonment of meter and rhyme
altogether” (Ibid.). She believes in a rift between the old and the new, for “the
struggle is inevitable for renewal,” and change and mutability have to
counter rigidity and permanence (Ibid. 76).
Trajectories of tradition and modernity make headway through this struggle,
to be sure, but there is also a careful navigation between the old and the
new in order to create a recognizable presence based on shared codes and an
innovative contribution. The young woman poet made her distinct achieve-
ment while affiliating herself with strong poets. FadwmYnqmn’s antecedent
authority begins and ends not only with her women ancestors like Danmnlr
or women contemporaries like the Iraqi dentist and poet Rabmb al-Kmziml
(Ibid. 60, 62) and Nmzik al-Malm’ikah, but also with ancient male prose
writers and poets like Ibn al-Rnml(d. 896) and the rest (Ibid. 53, 63, 66).
This autobiographical sketch is not unique, as almost every recognized talent
among modern poets followed more or less the same pattern.^64
Mu.ammad Bennls’ antecedent authorityAnother autobiographical itinerary from among the male tradition and from
the next generation may prove worthwhile, too. The Moroccan poet
Mu.ammad Bennls’ articulations tend to validate his poetics in the first
place, to encapsulate the overlapping and contestation of genres in a dialectic
that takes into account power politics whose tropes are spatial. As a discur-
sive threshold between Arab East and the Moroccan West, tradition and
modernity, and also a site of contestation and configuration, Mu.ammad
Bennls’ self-justifications may reveal another poetic predilection, too. In
mapping out his own poetic career, Bennls subscribes to a tendency among
poets since the late 1960s to justify a career and characterize it.^65 Speaking of
his own grounding and career, as well of his fellow poets, he traces an
antecedent authority, even an ancestry and lineage that can be traced to a
family of poets and Sufis. Isn’t he repeating the career of such ancestors as
Ibn ‘Arabland Imru’ al-Qays? They also “... tested the sufferings of the road.
In alienation, they continued their travel, searching for the pure meaning of
words.”^66 Their wanderings in time and place testify to a restless soul in search
for the right word. With Ibn ‘Arabl, there is also the “lineage of place” (Ibid.).
POETIC TRAJECTORIES: CRITICAL INTRODUCTION