The Comprehensive Anthology of Early 21st Century Arab Poets

By Jamal Assadi

The Comprehensive Anthology of Early 21st Century Arab Poets offers a rich tapestry of voices from the Arab world, transcending borders of geography, history, and culture.

These poets weave a diverse and intricate mosaic that reflects not only the multifaceted Arab realm with its myriad religious, political, and cultural nuances but also showcases them as enlightened, compassionate global citizens.

Dive into this collection and discover the vibrant heart and soul of contemporary Arab poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889102762

Jamal Assadi

Jamal Assadi earned a PhD in English from the University of Newcastle. He chairs the Department of English at the College of Sakhnin and is a lecturer at An-Najah National University, Nablus. In addition to numerous articles in professional journals, Assadi has written several books.

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About the Author

Jamal Assadi, associate professor, currently chairs the Department of English Language and Literature at the College of Sakhnin. He received his Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. In addition to numerous articles in professional journals, Prof. Assadi is the author of Acting, Rhetoric and Interpretation in Selected Novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Saul Bellow (2006) and co-editor of A Distant Drummer: Foreign Perspectives on F. Scott Fitzgerald (2007). Prof. Assadi, a writer of children’s stories and a renowned poet, has translated a few volumes of Palestinian poetry and short fiction into English.

Dedication

To my grandchildren Jamal Ali, Judy, Afnan, Ahmad, Omar, and Jamal Mohammad, and lovers of poetry – I dedicate this book.

Copyright Information ©

Jamal Assadi 2024

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Assadi, Jamal

The Comprehensive Anthology of Early 21st Century Arab Poets

ISBN 9798889102748 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798889102755 (Hardback)

ISBN 9798889102762 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023918815

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

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New York, NY 10005

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Acknowledgment

I am greatly indebted to Dr. Hanna Jubran for his unremitting revisions, helpful notes, and deep insight.

For permission to use copyrighted material, I would like to express our thanks and gratitude to the poets all over the Arab world.

My warmest thanks to the artist Ibrahim Hejazi, whose painting, Our Old House Window was the inspiration for the illustration on the cover developed by Austin Macauley Publishers.

Introduction

1

The Comprehensive Anthology of Early 21st Century Arab Poets is a collection of poems by Arab poets who manage to break down geographical, historical, and cultural barriers and display an amazing mosaic representing not only the Arab world with its various religious, political and cultural affiliations and interests, but also the beautiful image of modern, educated, and caring citizens of the world.

Within this volume, the reader will get to meet seventy-two poets. These poets were picked from three major websites whose members amount to more than 30.000 poets from the Arab world. Following a communication displaying my plan to create this anthology, a good number of candidates proposed by sending a sample poem. Subsequently, each poet was asked to submit three poems favored by the poet, regardless of the topic, along with a photo and a short resume. The following table displays the poets’ names arranged alphabetically, their country of birth, and a list of their poems:

Table 1: Poets Alphabetically Arranged

After the poems were collected, each poet was contacted by the translator to assure a concise understanding of the vocabulary, the meaning, the context and the spirit. Then, the translated text was revised by two qualified authors.

No claim is made that the selected poets are the most celebrated poets in the Arab world, or their poetry is the most eloquent. My aim is rather to assemble a representative collection of these poets, with some variety of theme, style, context, imagery, tone and language.

The list of poems depicts a faithful picture of the various aspects of Arab life all over the Arab world extending from the Gulf in the East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West, or from Syria in the North to Yemen and the heart of Africa in the South, let alone those poets who live in the Diaspora throughout the whole world. These poets present new arenas where opposed factors harmoniously join to struggle for dignity, freedom and justice. Readers of this volume will encounter serious poems strewn with light and humorous themes, poems of sensual and spiritual love interwoven with poems of the unusual and political. Each poem presents a different focus in terms of theme, imagery, style and language. Interestingly, more than 95 percent of the poems are written in the spirit of the classical Arab poem or the famous boḫūr, i. e. one unified rhyme, and meter. Indeed, when the poems were studied according to their major theme, it was found out that about eighty-six poems dealt with love, fifty-five with monologue, thirty-eight were concerned with wisdom, thirty-one with patriotism, while six with religion.

Table 2: Poems Arranged by Theme

Yet what really gives these poets their unique savor is that they manage to defy tradition, fight tyranny, and burst open locked entrances to express their own accounts—the accounts of their trouble, estrangement, banishment as well as their hopes and dreams—in a fresh extravagant voice, initially to their community, then to their people, then to their Arab world, and now expectantly to the world at large and all readers of English.

The interest in the classical