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While Nizar was a student at Damascus university, he wrote his first collection of Poems entitled (The Brunette told me). His father Tawfic, a respected national figure, helped finance the national movement against the French occupation, and was one of it’s leaders. His house was located in Al-Shaghor quarters of the old city of Damascus. Sir Edwin Henry Landseer and the Myth of Man's Dom.Nizar Qabbani was born in Damascus, Syria, on March 21,1923,to a traditional well-to-do family.Stevie Smith: Mother, What Is Man? asked Little Bo.Fulano de Tal: Las notas tocados en un piano de co.Carl Mydans: In the Shadow of the Capitol, 1935 (I.Samuel Johnson: Passion and Meditation together w.New England, Sunday afternoon just before Christmas.
#Nizar qabbani poem to damascus windows
Windows ("That time of year you may in me behold").Vassilis Zambaras: Athene's Tree (Two Poems).I never thought about it snowing in Damascus. what? lead? or perhaps the recognition of the gravity and impermanence of all possible worlds.Īnd on the roof of the shrine, two unconcerned white doves, about to take flight for eternity.Īmazing poem, pictures and discussion. Within the deepest internalized blues, suffering and joy, darkness and brilliance, diamonds and. "When Grey Turns to Blue" - old song title stuck to inside of even older head. But at least the candy shop window is really there.īlues, Islamic blues, not prairie blue but Middle Eastern sky-and there they are-internalized. From the outside looking in, with one's nose pressed to the candy shop window, who knows whether what one sees is really sweets, or just that painted plastic simulation they sell in Japan. I had half-heartedly tried translating Kabir some months back but to no avail. Very intriguing comments regarding the translation-work. We used to study till sunset and then prayed and left. (In this sense I think the social formations that have been erected upon that little American crumb are perhaps the most limiting of pseudo-"supports".)Īnother beauty! As a child I went to a Madarsa in Rajasthan and learnt Arabic for 45 days.
![nizar qabbani poem to damascus nizar qabbani poem to damascus](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/9c/3c/119c3c31b6c460a54e3a791250df813a.jpg)
You Canadian chaps have the advantage of neutrality. My sense of this matter of which you enquire is that "American" poetry is just a tiny crumb off the whole great pie, and that it's always up to us, wee dwarf Americans, to step outside and away from the small restricting box of whatever we once thought a "poem" was, and retain an appetite for that bigger thing, the poetic. One of the Ungaretti poems I've taken a stab at before (a late and relatively little known one), and then gone back and seen the imperfections of the effort, is this one I tried again just last week:
![nizar qabbani poem to damascus nizar qabbani poem to damascus](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/d7792361947111.5a7f4d1e56db4.jpg)
In the index under "Ungaretti" you'll see some of the results. I've been following the rushlight of Ungaretti's work into the darkness for nearly half a century, and every time I return to it, different glints and aspects appear. If I recall correctly, you've done some translating of Italian? Sometimes I think the only way to enter a poem in a language that is not your own is to close your eyes and pray. This poem "My Lover Asks Me" has actually been translated, here, by the very distinguished translators Bassam Frangieh and Clementina R. Embarrassing! But then English versions I found elsewhere didn't work for me. They will probably reveal their glaring deficiencies to anybody who really knows the original language. The two poems posted below this one are my own versions. He wrote down on a slip of receipt paper: Nizar Qabbani. Ayman was trying to add up his day's receipts. So that set the bar of comparison pretty high, the level of Darwish. We both greatly admire Darwish, Ayman from an intimate acquaintance, me from my usual interested rubbernecker's POV. I had made a typically flip remark to my friend Ayman concerning the Arabic poet Adonis. My Arabic vocabulary is limited to what I can garner from eavesdropping at the Fertile Grounds Cafe. The difference between what poet Jamie McKendrick refers to as knowledge of'language'and knowledge of languages. I've lately been reflecting on the nature of 'translation', weighing the merits of both the 'literalist' translation and the kind based on only a "passing knowledge" of the original source.
![nizar qabbani poem to damascus nizar qabbani poem to damascus](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/ab7ee361947111.5a7f4be2a4720.jpg)
Though I don't know Arabic (and my familiarity with Arabic writings is limited),I feel its spirit in your verse. I commend you on superb translation work. My Cub Scout Arabic isn't worth much, but the performance videos do transmit feeling at that "international language" level which maybe makes poetry what it is. There are quite a few YouTube videos of Qabbani performing his poems, and others performing them.