{"id":11534,"date":"2014-01-28T12:04:51","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T16:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=11534"},"modified":"2014-01-28T13:03:23","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T17:03:23","slug":"more-sahrawi-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/more-sahrawi-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"More Sahrawi Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was putting together Poems for the Millennium 4 (North African Literature)<\/strong>, I asked the excellent Spanish-language translator Joseph Mulligan to help with bringing over some of the work of the Sahrawi poets from the ex-Spanish colony of the Western Sahara. Joe \u00a0did a superb job \u2014 & has continued his interest & involvement with Sahrawi poetry, so that he now has a near complete anthology of Sahrawi poetry. Here a few excerpts from this work in progress (& an note by Mulligan at the end, setting the context.)<\/p>\n

New Translations of Sahrawi poets Ebnu, Lehsan, & Awah<\/b><\/p>\n

By Joseph Mulligan<\/i><\/p>\n

TRIBALISM OR STONES<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe in you
\nthousand-headed snake
\nwho slithers down these roads
\ntracking our footsteps.
\nI don\u2019t believe in you
\ngeneral without any glory
\nwho sends us into nameless secessions
\nto reopen the wounds of the dead.
\nI don\u2019t believe in you
\nqueen of rotted bloodlines
\nmuch less your curses
\nor antiquated ills.
\nSnake generals
\nGhost queens
\nIgnorant fools.
\nI believe more
\nin the saddened stoic
\nmillennial stones
\nI sometimes use
\nto wipe my ass.<\/p>\n

By Mohamed Salem Abdelfatah Ebnu, in Voz de fuego <\/i>(Universidad de Las Palmas, 2004).<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DAYS & DAYS<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are days when
\ntime\u2019s lead feet do damage,
\nwhen the sea resembles
\nthe tear of a melancholic god,
\nthe desert a scab
\non the ribs of the land,
\n& the sun a shower of coals.
\nDays when hope
\ncrosses her arms.<\/p>\n

But there are days
\nwhen time is just a grin
\nthat flies away,
\ndays when I crave
\nto mix the rainbow\u2019s every color
\non a pallet,
\nfashion a brush from a feathered cloud
\nto paint a world without an axis but with several poles
\n& throw dice with the cardinal corners.<\/p>\n

By Luali Lehsan, in Bubisher: Poes\u00eda saharaui contempor\u00e1nea<\/i>, ed. Mar\u00eda Jes\u00fas Alvarado (Puentepalo, 2003).<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

QALB EL HAULIA<\/strong><\/p>\n

I keep receiving the love letters
\nyour write
\nfrom Qalb El Haulia,
\nletters that tell me life
\nresumes after recent rain.<\/p>\n

Today, in lekhrif<\/i> so green,
\nunder the blazing sun of Tiris,
\nI read that the fitful hands
\nof unchained winds
\nstroke your cheeks,
\nsiroccos, storms, haze
\n& that you\u2019ve caught
\nmy scent as it wafted in
\nfrom the West.<\/p>\n

Oh, my bedouin love,
\nOh, my virgin nude,
\noh, my beautiful dune.<\/p>\n

You ask me what others
\ncall Qalb El Haulia,
\nso let me say poets
\nof the West call it
\n\u201cHeart of the virgin gazelle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just like that,
\nyour eyes wide open
\nso big & black & joyful,
\nwhere love can hatch,
\nthe path I follow back
\nto quench my thirst between
\nyour lips dark with nila<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I love you as qalb<\/i> or heart,
\nit doesn\u2019t matter which,
\nI love you as long as your name
\nis Qalb El Haulia
\nheart of the virgin gazelle.<\/p>\n

I love you as long as I seek
\nyou with my tired eyes
\n& find you like the promised land.
\nTiris, dear heart, I love you.
\nI love you like qalb
\n<\/i>& virgin gazelle unite.<\/p>\n

By Bahia Awah, in Versos refugiados <\/i>(Fundaci\u00f3n Universidad Alcal\u00e1 de Henares, 2007).<\/strong><\/p>\n

A NOTE ON SAHRAWI POETICS<\/p>\n

These selections are drawn from a work in progress provisionally titled, From the Shade of a Thorn Tree: A Range of Sahrawi Poetics<\/i>, a collection of poems & essays translated from the Castilian, which showcases contemporary poets of the Generaci\u00f3n de amistad saharaui<\/i> & locates their work in relation to their nomadic predecessors who composed oral poetry in Hassaniya Arabic on el-badia<\/i> of Western Sahara prior to the Moroccan occupation. Ebnu, Lehsan, & Awah represent major figures of this generation & their work, largely unknown in the Americas, is a fresh reminder that mestizaje<\/i> is not an exclusively Latin American occurrence. The Hassaniya vocabulary that often surfaces in Sahrawi poetry\u2014in this case, in Awah\u2019s poem: lekhrif <\/i>(the Western Saharan Spring), qalb <\/i>(heart, mountain), nila <\/i>(indigo)\u2014is not the tenet of a literary project, but a natural expression of languaged miscegenation that has eschewed the pretense of castizo<\/i> discourse. Sahrawi poetry must be read & we must read it in a Sahrawi context, without trying to contrast it to its Francophone neighbors, without assimilating it to its Hispanic relatives, and especially without proclaiming its appearance an ex nihilo <\/i>phenomenon. Sahrawi poetics represent the perpetuation of an age-old North African tradition that has been marginalized within the Maghreb itself and that, until only recently in the West, we have largely ignored.
\n\u2013<\/i>JM<\/i><\/p>\n

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