>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^M00:00:03 ^M00:00:23 >> Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of my colleagues, in particular, Doctor Mary-Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle East Division, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone. I'm Joan Weeks. I'm head of the Near East Section that is sponsoring today's program and we're very pleased to present this program entitled, "Never Tell a Poet Not to Write." And for a moment, I'm not going to tell a poet not to speak, but I'm wanted to give you just a little bit of an overview of our division and its resources in the hopes that you'll come back and do research and enjoy our collections. Today's program is about Arabic poetry. So, I did a brief search in our catalog and that's at catalog.loc.gov. And I invite you to search for yourself and come back in here and enjoy our books, particularly on Arabic poetry. If you just search under those terms, you'll pull up 192 items. And if you further refine your search to Arab women poets, you'll find specifically materials about other women poets. And if you would like to, you can refine your search by language so that you can actually have materials in Arabic or English or whichever way you want them. So, this is a custodial division and it's comprised of three sections that build and serve collections to researchers from around the world. We cover over 78 countries and more than two dozen languages. Our Africa section covers all the countries of Sub-Sahara Africa. And our Hebraic section covers Hebraic the worldwide. And our Near East section all of the Arab countries including North Africa, Turkey, Turkic Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, the Russian, Balkans, Armenia and Georgia. And I'd like to invite you to try out our 4 Corners Blog with our special posts by our special collections in Hispanic, European, and Asian as well as our African and Middle East division. And like us on Facebook and if you do that, you'll hear about further events that -- and programs we're planning in the future. And so, I'd like to remind you also and invite you to ask questions at the end. But if you do, you're implicitly giving us permission to videotape you as this program is being videotaped. So, without further ado, I'd like to call up my colleague, Doctor Muhannad Salhi, to introduce our speaker. Thank you. ^M00:03:05 ^M00:03:10 >> Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you all for joining us. Our speaker today, Waed Athamneh, is an Assistant Professor of Arabic Studies at Connecticut College. She is the Director of the Arabic Studies program. She received her PhD in Near Eastern languages and cultures from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2014. Her research focuses on modern Arabic poetry and refugee studies. Athamneh's first book is Modern Arabic Poetry, Revolution and Conflict, University of Notre Dame Press. She's currently working on her second book with Muhammed Massoud Refugee Voices, Women of the Zaatari Camp. Athamneh's articles have appeared in Middle Eastern Studies, Arabic Studies, Arab Studies Quarterly, and The Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies. Athamneh teaches courses in Arabic language, literature, and culture. There will be a book signing at the end of the event. The question-answer period will also be at the end of the event. But the -- Waed has been very kind. She brought us a not big box of baklava for anybody who's interested in her book, okay. And so, at the end of the event, please come to the conference room. And anybody who would like -- I'm sure Waed would be happy to sign your book and have some baklava as well. So, without further ado, Waed Athamneh. >> Thank you. Thank you very much Doctor Muhannad Sahli and thank you for being here today. It's an honor being at the Library of Congress and I couldn't be happier talking about Arabic poetry to you. So, thank you for being here today. Today, I'm going to talk about modern Arabic poetry and why the Arab regimes should never tell and Arab poet not to write. Poetry has played an essential in Arabic culture since pre-Islamic times. Dating back to the sixth century, also known as a the Jahiliyyah period, poets were the political spokespersons of the tribe. Each tribe had its own poets to write its history, defend its stature, and be its representatives and voice. Poets held esteem positions in society. Not only to document the ins and outs of their tribes and defend its identity, but also to promote their tribe among the other tribes. Arab poets described in carefully crafted verse the political and cultural aspects of their Bedouin society and used poetry to praise the tribe or attack its rivals. Praise, boasting, satire, and elegy, were among the major functions of their pre-Islam [foreign word], the oath. Pre-Islamic poetry was oral and its performative nature demanded rhyme and meter to draw the attention of the audience through its musicality. Tribes competed through the talents of their poets who would gather every year to present their finest poems to the public. The stronger the tribe, the more powerful the voice of its poets became. By the same token, the more gifted a tribe's poets, the louder its voice among other tribes. Poets moved men to go to war and recounted their exploits after their return from the battlefield. If the tribe won a battle, its poets wrote verses in its praise which quickly traveled among other tribes raising its status. If it lost, poets wrote elegies and cited the tribe to avenge its heroic, slaughtered kinsmen. Arabs consider poetry one of their supreme, cultural accomplishments. All though modern Arabic poetry continued to retain some of the major functions of the pre-Islamic [foreign word], its deeply concerned about questions that pertain to the identity and future of Arabs. And here are some of the functions of modern Arabic poetry. Another function is questioning the political status quo and giving voice to the silenced, voiceless multitude. Modern Arab poets, like the Egyptian, Ahmad abd al-Muti-Hijazi, the Syrian, Nizar Qabbani, the Egyptian, Fatma Kandil, and the Iraqi, Muzaffar al-Nawwab, wrote poetry for decades to guard the collective memory, to preserve our Arabic language, and to address the challenges of our culture and society. In so doing, they were also questioning our understanding of history and rewriting from the perspective of the people, not their authoritarian regimes. Because these poets opposed their governments and incited their people through poetry to reject their enslavement in a life void of basic human rights, they were often exiled, imprisoned, dismissed from official positions, and harassed by the Arab state. Therefore, the experience of a wandering human being in exile, or diaspora, and the search for the lost paradise, the homeland, is a popular theme in modern Arabic poetry. Poetry offered these poets and the Arab individual a space to grieve, to criticize the status quo, to dream of a better life, to meditate, and to feel. Poetry is one of the few remaining expressions of art and beauty for the Arab individual in this tragic age. Poems do not lie and if the future looks dim, poetry will say so. For those reasons and many more, Arab regimes and rulers should never tell an Arab poet not to write. Because poetry invites creativity and imagination. And Arab regimes do not want their people to think or dream. They want ignorant, obedient nations living in fear. Writing poetry is searching for the key that has been lost to open closed doors. Poetry invites readers to find their keys or break their closed doors and set themselves free. The price of freedom in the Arab world is hefty for sure and poets are the first to know. Here are the poets I'll be talking about today. Qabbani, Nizar Qabbani, Ahmad abd al-Muti Hijazi, Fatma Kandil, Muzaffar al-Nawwab, among many other Arab poets, wrote poetry to preserve Arabic language and the poetic tradition as well as to address universal causes that are of utmost concern to humanity, and especially to the Arab citizen. They feared for their fellow Arabs and their language and heritage. And they used their only weapon, poetry, to voice their concerns and shape their stances. They saw poetry as a platform to fight against dictators and oppressors. They warned against the loss of Arab identity and anticipated a grand future if Arab citizens and poets continued to live in fear of oppression. For change to take place in the Arab world, fear of repression must be eliminated and death and ruin should be expected before the sky rains and the land can be fertile again. The first poet I'll be talking about today is Nizar Qabbani, the Syrian poet. Nizar Qabbani was born in 1923 [foreign word] in Damascus and he died in London in 1998. He wrote over 40 books of poetry and prose. And his poetry has been celebrated and translated in several languages. He's often referred to as the poet of the people or the romantic poet. So, who is Qabbani? Let's read some stanzas of his poetry and discuss some of the major themes and functions. The following stanza here -- this is Nizar Qabbani -- We are Accused of Terrorism. Because of limitations of time, I selected some stanzas. The following stanza is from his poem, We are Accused of Terrorism and in this poem, he voices his disappointment with the status quo in the Arab world which reflects that of Arabic poetry and how poets are treated. He says, "You will not find with me a secret poem or a secret language or secret books I imprison inside the doors. I do not have even one poem walking on the streets while wearing a hijab. ^M00:13:28 We are accused of terrorism if we write about the homeland that forbids us from buying a newspaper or hearing the news about a homeland where all birds are banned from singing, about a homeland whose writers are accustomed to writing the air out of extreme horror. We're banned from writing about a homeland that resembles poetry in our country, improvised, imported, and loose of foreign tongue and soul and having no beginning or end, detached from man and land or from the plight of man." According to Qabanni, nations that fail to nurture their poets to defend and preserve their language and literature will have no civilizations to be remembered. Qabbani realizes how fear governs Arabic life and threatens Arabic literature as well. Arab writers and poets like Qabbani, lived and live in a country that forbids them from living a normal life. It forbids them even from buying newspaper or hearing the news. It turns the poets down and bans them from writing poetry, from speaking out. However, Qabbani insists on writing about this homeland because it too is a victim. Qabbani refuses to oppress his bird by using a secret language to imprison the poem. Rather, he insists on writing naked free poems about this homeland and its displaced people. If Arabic poetry is reduced to improvised, imported, and loose words of foreign tongue and soil, then Arabs will have lost not only a part of our culture and thought, but also their identity. Therefore, writing poetry for Qabbani is an act of resistance against erasing an Arab identity and stripping its people from their language. I quote, "Qabbani's hailed by the Arabs to be a modern poet of stature, whose poetry is read, put to music, sung, and memorized. This is the most important testimony to his genius." End of quote. J. Gatin [phonetic spelling]. Qabbani said in 1948 when he published his first collection the following -- and it says a lot about him being a poet. I want art to be the property of all people, like air, water, and the song of the sparrow. I dream about a poetic city. If the reader feels that my heart becomes his heart and that I become for him a mouth and throat, then I certainly shall have achieved my aim, that is, to make poetry exist in every house besides bread and water. The Arab authoritarian states will continue indefinitely to hunt down poets, call them terrorists, and try to buy them off. But as [foreign name] says, "The dictator perishes and the poet remains." Qabbani maintains that writing free poetry is the key to combat fear, to fight oppression, and to preserve what remained of our Arabism. This is what he can do as a poet. My second poet is Ahmad abd al-Muti-Hijazi. Ahmad abd al-Muti-Hijazi was born in the village of [foreign word] Al-Menoufiya, Egypt, 1935. His family was one of the middle-class peasant families in the Egyptian countryside where he was educated and brought up. He wrote seven collections of poetry between 1959 and 2011 and he has written 25 books in prose as well. His poetry has been translated into several languages. The following stanza is from his collection, Creatures of the Ninth Kingdom, in 1989. This Ninth Kingdom refers to [foreign name] dictatorship. In this poem, Hijazi gives shape to the feelings of loss and despair in the life characterized by fear where he is, I quote, "At his closest to modernist dramatization." "Nothing remained of the glory of this country but a bar. Nothing remained of the state but a policeman showing off under the last light his long shadow one time and another time his short shadow. Fear has become a homeland, a currency, a national language, anthem and identity, and elected council. And fear has become its savior." According to Hijazi, the country that once lived Arab nationalism has been reduced to a bar populated by chattering drunks and a state of policemen. There is nothing to be proud of about Egypt according this stanza, which has become a wasteland devoid of democracy, freedom, morals, ethics, and security. Hijazi complicates the image of his wasteland by projecting fear into the scene. Fear has become the dominant theme in every aspect of life, as we see. More importantly, it's become the homeland. Dominating every aspect of life in the Ninth Kingdom, fear's now the religion and the god everyone worships and fears in the Arab world. Instead of promoting security, Arab rulers use fear and oppression to terrorize their people and oppose their authority over them. Failing to maintain an identity or speak a language that doesn't involve fear, Hijazi distrusts and despises everything he sees and he hears. In another stanza from another poem, Cement Trees, and commenting on fear and hunting poets -- "The wind comes and goes without crossing this silence or being able to convey the villages' distress. And the shipwrecked vessels and these cement trees are everywhere showing off and roaring, like demons, and hunting birds that fall like stones in the radars. Or hanging them from the fuzz of their necks on the wires of the spying machines. From our balconies, we know that the birds are dying now in these skies when the flock crashes. Hijazi watches the villages in distress and shipwrecked vessels while the wind comes and goes uncaring. Life seems to go on without sympathy for the ordeal of a poet whose life came to the birds. Writers express the struggle of the individual in their societies and oppose their oppressive regimes. These regimes are like cement trees. They suffocate the individual and hide his screams between closed doors. They're like demons which hunt human beings and throw them mercilessly to the grounds. Hijazi criticizes the Arab regimes for spying on writers, torturing them, and censoring and banning their works from the public. The poem reflects the disappointed pessimistic and oppressed Hijazi's poetry in the 1980's. Hijazi expresses opposition to the lack of freedom of expression throughout the Arab world, particularly in Egypt. Writers are hunted down and their lives are monitored. Hijazi sees the Arab world as a wasteland that oppresses its citizens and silences their voices. That's why poets speak out on behalf of their people. My third poet is my favorite poet, Muzaffar al-Nawwab. Muzaffar al-Nawwab was born in 1934 in Bagdad, Iraq. He spent over 40 years in exile voicing his strong opposition to and criticism of authoritarian Arab regimes and Western imperialism. His words I quote, "Are so controversial that they cannot be printed officially in the Arab world are under an interdiction. His poetry readings circulating on cassettes are photocopied and passed from hand to hand." End of Quote. And now, the age of the internet, his poetry is available online, of course. Although, Arab governments continue to censor any threatening, poetic material like that of Nawwab. This is a quotation about al-Nawwab. Most central to al-Nawwab's project as a poet, is the very concerted dedications to the composition, orchestration, and performance of poetry that is meant to stir and agitate his audience, to provoke and arouse a wide rate of emotions, childlike wonderment, nostalgic longing, sensuous arousal, disgust, rage, all in some way meant to be intimately related back to the fate of the contemporary Arab world as a matter of urgent collective concern." ^M00:23:55 A major recurring theme in the following stanzas from With Wine and Grief is My Heart Intoxicated is in the words, grief and longing for his homeland in diaspora. And since you see it in translation, I can read it in Arabic. ^M00:24:21 [ Foreign Speaking ] ^M00:25:34 al-Nawwab finds no keys in diaspora to free him from his grief. He wanders in exile and wonders if there is still a chance to rescue what remained of the homeland, its identity, and future. In this poem, al-Nawwab treats themes of grief, oppression, ruthlessness, and homesickness. In the Arab world, poets like al-Nawwab become a ruthless plant living, or pretending to live in water. This plant longs for any dust to call home but it finds none. Knowing what it means to be a ruthless plant in water, Nawwab looks at a sleeping baby, hears him cooing and wishes he does not grow up to be as listless and ruthless as the poet, himself. He prays the child grows up to find himself a place he can call home. Because in the Arab world, there is no privilege that equals that of truly having a homeland. Having none, Nawwab realizes how open wounds are not meant to heal and therefore they become the memory of loss. Grief runs in al-Nawwab's blood and drowning in a ruin sea of infinite pain is now the port. And Nawwab knows and reminds us that the mud of love in our land is harmed. If the dirtiest mud sprouts jasmine, when it's nurtured with love, what would the best Arab mud sprout? And Nawwab weeps for the lost paradise and the lost potential of Arab youth. A youth oppressed and stripped from its basic human rights. What does the future have in store for this baby? No one knows but the poet is worried and rightly so. For no one knows what it means to have a place to call home more than a ruthless plant in water. ^M00:28:06 [ Foreign Speaking ] ^M00:28:27 I threw my keys in the Tigris in the days of longing. And now in diaspora, there remains no key to unlock me. Here I am, locked up but outspoken. He who was locked up in longing and was lost on the sidewalks of al-Shaam, shall relate to me. Those who share the poet's experience of walking on the sidewalks of al-Shaam, lost, sad, and alienated, would understand his words and relate to his pains that no remedy can treat. Despite being locked up in diaspora, al-Nawwab continues to be outspoken. Many Arabs in the Arab world and in the diaspora, relate to Nawwab's poetry and share some aspects of his experience. In another poem, the Old Tavern -- this is the last one by al-Nawwab -- Nawwab reminds us all that as an Arab poet, he rejects two things. And we shall see these two things. Oh lord, I have accepted all things except humiliation and having my heart caged in the sultan's palace. I was content that my lot in this world be like that of a bird, but oh Lord, even birds have homelands to return to. But I am still flying over this homeland stretching from sea to sea, prisons pressed against one another, one jailer huddling another. ^M00:30:10 [ Foreign Speaking ] ^M00:30:44 al-Nawwab projects two things, humiliation and becoming the voice of the sultan instead of that of the people. For a poet like Nawwab, the act of writing poetry is a necessary act of resistance to maintain a dignified life. Like a bird, he needs to return home. However, because of his poetry, he's destined to weep over the ruins of the Arab world which has turned into prison stretching from to sea to sea. ^M00:31:19 ^M00:31:35 Now, I'll be talking about Nazir Qabbani -- coming back -- Nazir Qabbani. The complete poetry for political abduction incident. This poem speaks afresh of the status quo in the Arab world and more specifically to the refugee crisis in Syria despite being written some 40 years ago. So, it's a very interesting poem. There are a few quotations -- stanzas, of course because it's a very long poem. Forgive us, our blood has been shed since we were born. A thousand policemen are on our papers. They shot us but we did not fall. They tried to cut our legs to hinder us from crawling but we stood up. They cut off our hands, so that we cannot hold the pens but we wrote. They tried to convince us that poetry is disbelief so we became disbelievers. Forgive us if we urinate on all the statues that fill the squares of the city and all the images that the police post forcibly and all the shops of the city and all the slogans at which the children of the city throw bricks. Forgive us if we pile like sheep on the back of the ship, if we are scattered on all the oceans for years and years. We did not find among the Arab traders, a trader who would accept to feed us our buy us. We did not find among the beautiful Arab women a woman accepting to love us or free us. We did not find among the Arab rebels a rebel who did not stab us with a knife. Forgive us, forgive us if we reject everything, if we break everything, if we uproot everything, if we throw our names at you because the valleys refused us and the ports refused us. ^M00:33:37 [ Foreign Speaking ] ^M00:33:49 Qabbani questions the predominant narratives of Arab history, religion, and literature. He envisions the future of the Arab world, either in a revolution where Arab leaders are attacked in their palaces and ousted by the people or in a major refugee crisis where the people are ousted by their leaders. Qabbani defends the people against the regime in this court trial offering a complete account of an abduction incident that has been taking place in the Arab world without being reported or fairly tried. In ironically offering a poetic apology to oppressor forces that crush Arab individuals and undermine their humanity, Qabbani reveals a history of systematic oppression in the Arab world and incites his people to revolt if they want to stop this abduction from continuing indefinitely. Towards the end of the poem, Qabbani speaks for his scattered fellow Arabs, particularly refugees who are denied entry by Arab ports across the world. Qabbani tells the rulers of fear in police states in the Arab world to forgive us because we couldn't change the way things are, because we let you shed our blood to get drunk with it as Nawwab said, and because we gave you the keys to our prison cells as obedient sheep you made us into. Until we face fear and take these keys back and break these chains, nothing will change and no prophets will come to save us from the abyss. The sun of oppression will continue to burn us alive and the world will continue to become less humane with every passing day. ^M00:36:06 ^M00:36:19 I end my talk today with Fatma Kandil. Fatma Kandil was born [foreign word] in Cairo in 1958. She wrote several collections of poetry and she's popular among the young generation. The following stanzas are from her poem, Thorny Gap, Suddenly Moving or Keys [foreign speaking] in which she raises questions about the fate -- about fate and free will and she addresses fear and how to better deal with it. The keys that open doors are the keys that lock them. And the keys strangled in chains have nothing but the drama of tinkling. But the key that dies in my pocket reminds me it is time that I become a reasonable woman who lives in a house without keys, without doors. ^M00:37:32 [ Foreign Speaking ] ^M00:38:38 Every day while I am on the express metro, a rundown house flashes by, a wooden ladder leaning against it, and a corrugated iron door, always open. Every day, until it became my home. Fatma Kandil addresses the fear controlling her life in general, her life as a female Arab individual and uses the same keys that suffocate her life to unlock the doors of the rooms that Arab citizens have been confined in for centuries. She realizes that the house she lives in only becomes here when she breaks its doors open. So, she no longer needs keys to open these doors. Fear governs every aspect of our life, public and personal. Therefore, Kandil realizes that the keys that strangle her are the keys that will set her free. Freeing the keys from the chains is freeing oneself from the same chains, no keys, no doors. That even the rundown house which is a metaphor of what our life has become in this tragic time, becomes free home. Kandil tells us that we glance at our rundown life everyday while holding the keys to our freedom. But fear stops us from acting, from changing. She reminds us that no one will act on our behalf and if we want to turn this rundown house into a home, we better take responsibility for our own fates, for our own future, and make our own destiny. More important than this realization, is that confession that our life is a rundown house. In writing such poems, Kandil refuses to be silenced and refuses to surrender her destiny to fate. If Qabbani declares he has no secret books that he imprisons inside the doors, Kandil insists to break these doors and their keys altogether. A home is a loving place you make for yourself. And it doesn't qualify as home if its keys are with someone else. It doesn't qualify as home if closing its doors means imprisonment instead of freedom. Keys will not give you a home but Arabic poetry becomes your home when you have nowhere else to go. Never tell an Arab poet not to write because you cannot take from poets their final refuge when everyone has failed them. Thank you very much. ^M00:41:23 [ Applause ] ^M00:41:32 ^M00:41:39 >> Thank you very much for such a wonderful talk. We have a few minutes for question and answer. >> Thank you. Please? ^M00:41:53 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:41:55 >> Thank you. ^M00:41:56 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:42:09 >> Fear. They refuse to submit to fear. And they know they hold the keys which is for poets to speak out, to encourage their people to speak, to run a dignified life, to refuse to be humiliated. So, everyone is searching for his key and some of them know they will never find the key like Nawwab. He lost his key and he knows there is no key but he's still talking about the homeland and diaspora and longing and he's sharing his pain and grief with others. So, for people, for Arab people in the Arab world and in the diaspora, they read his poetry, they relate to his grief. They share the same experience. They find home when they don't have a home to go to. So, they're all -- they all reject to submit to fear and they all are looking for these keys and they all want us to look for these keys and to speak out through poetry if the audience is poetic or in other means or to read poetry -- to relate to this poetry because they write for us and the poetry is universal, of course. Everybody can relate to the poetry in one way or another. Thank you for your question. Yes, please. ^M00:43:26 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:43:38 >> Yes ^M00:43:39 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:43:55 >> Yes, yes. ^M00:43:56 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:44:01 >> Yes, the hijab is figurative. He wants to -- he writes free, naked poems. He says what he wants to say without using a secret language. So he is against oppression and authoritarian regimes and he says it. So, his poetry is very political and speaking of Arab women, yes, exactly. That's why I wanted to end with Fatma Kandil because she knows that she has the keys to her life, to her destiny, to her freedom and through poetry, she can reveal some of these keys and secrets to others. So, we're seeing more and more of some kind of engagement of Arab women in politics and in poetry and being able to speak out against the same conditions they're subject to as men but more so because they're definitely women. Yes. ^M00:44:58 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:45:01 >> Yes, yes -- my favorite poet. ^M00:45:03 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:45:08 >> Yes. It still is, actually. ^M00:45:09 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:45:28 >> Yes, in America, you can find everything online. There are -- >> Where is it published? >> It's published online as pdf's so you can download and read or you can go to websites that publishes Arabic poetry so -- [inaudible comment] It's been published in the Arab world but you cannot have it, of course, unless it's secretive. It still is, interestingly, even online -- here I can find things online because I'm here. But when I go to Jordan or if you're abroad, the websites are blocked. So, we can't really read Nawwab easily. So, people make photocopies and share them even now in the Arab world. I used to read him as a child because my father used to read his poetry and we have some of his collections. Sure, but ironically, still, he's still banned in the Arab world and if you try to go online if you're in Jordan or in Syria or in Iraq, it is a challenge. Yeah, but he's still, you know, maybe because of these reasons, he's celebrated, he's translated, he's read. His poetry's memorized, it inspires and incites. It aroused the audience. And if you go online, also you can listen to him read his own poetry on YouTube. And people can relate to his emotions and the way he says things -- especially about [foreign words]. ^M00:46:50 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:46:53 >> Very, very few. Very few. And I'm hoping I will be able to do that next. There are epic poems, excellent and amazing, by Nawwab, nobody translated, nobody knows anything about. And that would be my next project hopefully. Yes. ^M00:47:12 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:47:23 >> Shem, [foreign word], Shem. Yes, yes. Shem [foreign word] Shem. In Syria, they refer to Damascus as Shem. Outside Syria, Shem is Syria. Yes. ^M00:47:44 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:47:53 >> Yeah, thank you. Yes. Please, [inaudible] ^M00:48:01 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:48:45 >> The younger generation is turning to Qabbani and Muzaffar al-Nawwab. We have new poets, but they can relate more to that generation -- the 1960's generation. And we have new voices, one of them is Fatma Kandil, but I can speak about my generation, 1980's, it's not a surprise that we go back to the 1960's generations and read their poets and we feel that we can relate more to that generation and their poetry. For some reason, I think the poetry was and still is one of the best poetry. The poetry of Nizar Qabbani, the poetry of [foreign name], and the poetry of Muzaffar al-Nawwab. I do read sometimes for young poets like [foreign name] and other poets and Fatma Kandil, but I always feel like something brings me back to al-Nawwab. Something brings me back to the past to read and appreciate their poetry. And whenever I go to Jordan, I go to the library, I speak to professors and most of them say, "We're still looking for something missing in the new poetry which makes us go back all the time to the 1960's and 1970's generation." So, we would have to wait to see how the new poetry turns out. But this poetry is still celebrated and memorized in the Arab world. My father used to read it to my mother and I now read it to my husband. ^M00:50:21 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:51:09 >> They want to give them more time before they critique their works. So that's why we go back to the 60's and 70's. It's been time since they were written so we can go back and, you know, take a distance and read. ^M00:51:20 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:51:29 >> Yes, they are still very popular. ^M00:51:31 [ Inaudible Comment ] ^M00:51:35 >> Absolutely. Especially because of music as well. Some of this poetry has been put into music, Nazir Qabbani and Muzaffar al-Nawwab. And you were talking about that. So, it travels across time and age. It's a strong poetry. It's beautiful poetry. And we can relate to it although it was written 40, 50, 60 years ago. Especially [foreign speaking]. You see what's happening now in Syria and you read this poem and you say it's been 40 years but it feels like yesterday. So, some of these poems have emerged again now to the surface and people have been reading them. And music also played a great role because musicians usually look at the poetry, at least in the other world and want to put into music something that has been read, world translated, and that's popular. And this poetry is popular, so instead putting to music something that has just been published or new or not critiqued or has not been translated, they would go to the 1960's or 70's generation, especially Nazir Qabbani and Muzaffar al-Nawwab because people can relate to them. The language they use, as Nazir Qabbani said, is a language that the public can understand. It's beautiful, it's poetry, but it's something that they can relate to. Unlike the poetry of Adonis. Adonis writes to the elite because he believes that the public will not change anything and his hopes are on the elite who will change things. So, he writes the poetry that only the elite can understand. But Qabbani said and Muzaffar said, "No, we're writing to the public. Not only because we want them to change things, but because we relate to them. We are their voice so we speak for them in one way or another." Thank you. ^M00:53:15 ^M00:53:21 >> Thank you very much Doctor Athamneh. And as I mentioned, there's going to be baklava in the conference room and there's going to be a book signing. Thank you again. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. My pleasure. ^M00:53:33 [ Applause ] ^M00:53:37 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov. ^E00:53:44