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- Title
Empire, Split Ethnicities, and an Explosion of Poetry.
- Authors
Butt, Aviva
- Abstract
Guidelines to understanding the poetry of the Kurdish poet-prophet Salim Barakat (b. 1951, Qamishli, Syria) are to be found in a poem by his friend, the Palestinian poet-prophet Mahmud Darwish (b. 1941, al-Birweh, Palestine – d. 2008) – Laisa lil-Kurdi ila al-Rih [Ila: Salim Barakat] (The Kurd Has Only the Wind [For Salim Barakat]) ( (2004). For the benefit of the English-speaking reader, asDarwish's poem and Barakat's poetry (also in Arabic) have not previously been translated to English, I have included, in the body of this study, my translation of Darwish's aforementioned poem and various of Barakat's poems, namely: Niqabat al-Ansab (Lineage) (1970); Kama'in fi al-Mun‘atafat Killiha / Htam ma – Sihm (Ambushes at Turns / Conclusion – A Sort of Arrow) (1985). I have appended the whole of Barakat's long poem Surya (Syria) (2014). The techniques Barakat introduces into the art of writing modern Arabic poetry come from modern mainstream poetry, as well as from his Kurdish and Persian background. Altogether his concept of history, which puts into sharp outline the norm of the ancient and medieval world of empire, enters the poem-of his-being, the “work" as Maurice Blanchot describes it – and makes his chronicling unique. Discussion of the selected poems clarifies as to how Barakat became a poet-prophet, and describes the commitment he took on not only to the Kurdish nation, but also to the entire Middle East.
- Subjects
KURDISH poetry; BARAKAT, Salim; DARWISH, Mahmud, 1942-2008; ETHNICITY; TRANSLATIONS of poetry; KURDISH national character; POETRY (Literary form); LITERARY criticism
- Publication
International Journal of Kurdish Studies, 2018, Vol 4, Issue 1, p42
- ISSN
2149-2751
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.21600/ijoks.383376