But there was an older grief that influenced Qabbani’s poetry, and his life. He expressed his grief over both deaths in poems which are among his best loved. His son from his first marriage, Tawfiq, died of a heart attack at the age of 17, and his second wife, Balqis, was killed in a bomb attack on the Iraqi embassy in Beirut in 1982. Married, twice, Qabbani had four children. During his time with the Foreign Ministry, he served posts in Cairo, Beirut, Istanbul, Madrid, London and China.
#Nizar qabbani poems onj grief full
He continued to work at the Ministry until his resignation in 1966, a full twenty years. Qabbani graduated in 1945 with a degree in law, and went to work for the Syrian Foreign Ministry. The shock was lessened a bit by the preface to the book, which was written by a friend of Qabbani’s father, Munir Al-Ajlani, the Minister Of Education for Syria. The book, Kalat Liya al-Samraa (The Dark Skinned Said to Me), shocked staid Damascus society with its open and provocative descriptions of women’s bodies and the lush sensuality of Qabbani’s writing. Qabbani’s first book of verse was published while he was still at the Syrian University (later to be called Damascus University) studying law. He was also influenced by his great uncle, Abu-Khalil Al-Qabbani, one of the writers whose work greatly changed the face of Arabic drama. Young Nizar adopted his father’s views as his own as he grew, and those views influenced both his life and his poetry. The elder Qabbani was imprisoned several times during Nizar’s childhood for his support of fighters in the resistance against the French mandate of Syria. His father owned a chocolate factory, but it was his political views and activities that influenced the young Qabbani. Qabbani (sometimes spelled as Kabbani), was born into a wealthy and well-known family in Damascus. Qabbani was a diplomat, poet and publisher whose work approached the sensitive subjects of eroticism, feminism, Arab nationalism, love and religion. The joy of El Najma's squareĪnd sorrow has came carrying to me its giftsĪnd where's the nooks of our spacious house.īorn in 1923 to a prestigious Syrian family, Nizar Qabbani was to become one of the most loved and revered poets in the Arab world. To a home which showered us with love and mercy I'm asking you to take care of 'her' mother.Īs she was the most loved sweetheart to my father.Īnd he invites her over his cup of coffeeĪnd she still lives by the dream of his returnĪnd looks for him in the corners of his room I have known the emotions of cement and woodĪnd I have roamed India, roamed Sindh, roamed the yellow world
Close your eyes and listen.And its stars, and rivers, and all of its red Anemones. This results in a forceful, hypnotizing listening experience. Thus, the sound in these poems often works on two levels: that of rhyming consonants within words and that of vowels used in case endings. Their intense sound springs from the use of case endings-a feature of literary Arabic that attaches vowel sounds to the ends of words to designate their grammatical function within a phrase or sentence. (Insert your favorite dessert in the blank.) Even as an Arabic speaker, I don’t understand Arabic poetry completely, because the gap between spoken and literary Arabic is vast.īut Arabic poems can be relished for their auditory merits alone. Let me convince you: Arabic poetry is to the ears what _ is to the tongue. “What’s the point of listening to a poem I won’t understand?” “But I don’t understand Arabic,” you might be thinking as you skim this article. He spent the last 15 years of his life in London, and when he died, a New York Times obituary quoted another Arab poet’s estimation of Qabbani’s work: “His poetry was as necessary to our lives as air.”
“Do You Love Me and I Am Blind?” was written by Damascus-born poet Nizar Qabbani, who, after a diplomatic career with the Syrian government, began a publishing house in Beirut and wrote prolifically, most notably poetry on love, politics, and Arab nationalism. Saddened, he releases her with a parting request: that she promise to care for his eyes. Then, when she wakes up able to see, the woman realizes her lover is himself blind and refuses to marry him. After insisting that she cannot marry without her sight, the man says he will find someone to donate a pair of eyes for her. Today’s poem, recited by Syrian photojournalist Zaher Al Zaher, tells of a man’s love for a beautiful woman who is blind.