Home

Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Audio Archive

Arabic Poetics and the International Literary Scene

Reference URL

Add tags

Comment

Rate

To link to this object, paste this link in email, IM or document
To embed this object, paste this HTML in website

Arabic Poetics and the International Literary Scene

View Description

you wish to report:

Your comment:

Your Name:

...

Rating
Title	Arabic Poetics and the International Literary Scene
Performer(s)	Joris, Pierre
Subject 1	Poetry -- 21st century.
Subject 2	Poetry -- Arab authors.
Subject 3	Poets, Arabic.
Abstract	A Pierre Joris lecture discussing the history of Arab poetry, including its development and relation to Arabic culture. He reads and discusses translated poems by several prominent writers, including Mahmoud Darwish, Abdul Kader El Janabi, and Abdellatif Laabi.
Content	0:02 - Audio slate; 0:12 - Anselm Hollo introduces Pierre Joris; 4:00 - Joris begins responding to a question from Anselm and introduces his talk, with references to Sept. 11th, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. He focuses predominantly on Arab poetry and culture rather than wider international scene. He talks about teach-in he did at SUNY with readings from post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki, and from Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish about Israeli shellings in Beirut, "Out of One Dream is Born" (from Poems for the New Millenium, 2nd. vol.); 13:48 Discusses the tradition of Arab poetry, which he calls "tremendous." Role of poetry and the poet in tribal Yemeni societies is still core role in socio-political arena. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry -- The Seven Odes -- and other classic Arabic poetry's untranslatability in contemperary American, as compared to French. Joris trying to translate them within an Iraqi friend, including turning to haiku and renga for image centers. Reads a few of them; 24:10 - How tradition of the Odes continued into contemporary Arabic poetry, through early Islamic scholars and the Khassida (Quassida). European poetry from same root, through the French troubadours. What is happening now (beginning in the 1950s) with Arabic poetry -- modernism of a sort -- with poets (Adonis and others) and the magazine Shi'ir in Beirut breaking the traditional norms of Arabic poetry (the Kassida, traditional songs, short forms, etc.) They call it a prose poem, but it's more like our free verse, and what they call free verse, which actually plays against more formal elements. Yet Arabic "modernism" actually began in the 13th century with Omar Khayyam and others, Joris says, if we compare it to the city poem that began European modernism. Need for translation of those writers and the dangers of bad translation. Joris' own translations of Arab poetry from the Mahgreb -- in French and Arabic. The journal Banipal, as a good source of poetry.; 37:00 - More on Arab literature from the Mahgreb, and then readings of some, all in translation. Reads excerpts from Ounsi el-Hajj, a Lebanese poet's, The Messenger with Her Hair Long to the Strings, trans. by Brendel France (sp?).; 43:37 - reads and discusses poem by Abdul Kader El Janabi, a surrealist Iraqi poet living in Exile in Franc, trans. by Joris, "Against In Arabi."; 45:35 Joris reads poem by Morocaan poet Abdellatif Laabi that begins, "I'm not a nomad..."; 46:45 - Joris reads a poem by Habib Tengour, an Algerian poet who wrote, Empedocles's Sandal.; 47:10 -- tape cuts off at side change.
Type of Event	lecture
Engineer's Notes	tons of hiss and rumbling; sound very uneven -- going back and forth between right and left throughout the tape. Nothing.
Date Recorded	2001-09-19
File Format	mp3
Performance Length	0:47:10
Rights Information	Copyright release given to Naropa University for the purposes of preservation, marketing and educational use. All other rights reserved to individual performers.
Department	Writing
Original Format	Audio cassette
Publisher	Allen Ginsberg Library and Naropa University Archives
Type	Sound
Language	eng
File Name	01P115.mp3

Arabic Poetics and the International Literary Scene

Description

Tags

Comments