{"id":6245,"date":"2011-04-18T18:50:36","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T22:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=6245"},"modified":"2011-04-18T18:50:36","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T22:50:36","slug":"from-the-diwan-ifrikiya-anthology-malika-al-assimi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/from-the-diwan-ifrikiya-anthology-malika-al-assimi\/","title":{"rendered":"from the “Diwan Ifrikiya” anthology: Malika al-Assimi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Working on the Maghrebi anthology, a strong discovery for me was the Moroccan poet Malika al-Assimi<\/strong>. Here is the commentary we wrote for her followed by two poems:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Malika al-Assimi<\/strong>, a poet, writer and teacher, also actively involved in politics, has fought discrimination against women, especially in public service, all of her life. Though she lost her first electoral bid to represent her Marrakech district in the Moroccan parliament, she won the seat on the second try. In the early 1970s she founded and published the journal al-Ikhtiyar<\/em> (The Choice), and has contributed to other journals, such al-Thaqafa al-Maghribiyya<\/em> (Maghrebi Culture). Her poetry has always been strongly centered on\u00a0 empowering women in all aspects of their lives \u2014 socially, politically and culturally. As A. La\u00e2bi writes: \u201cMalika al-Assimi has played the role of outrider for [Moroccan] women, when one realizes that before her, poetry was a quasi male monopoly. Her contribution is all the more estimable as from the very start she took an offensive line. The stakes did not revolve about making a \u201cfeminine voice\u201d heard, but were about inserting oneself naturally into the process of the poetic renaissance in progress. And to this process she brought something often lacking in the male voice: a different relation to the body, to the forces that manifest life or try to destroy it, including in the private sphere. In this rough male winter, it is through an interior sun that her poetry lights our way.\u201d Besides a number of volumes of poetry \u2014 including , Kitabat Kharij<\/em> Aswar al-\u2018Alam (1988, Writings Outside the Walls of the World), and Aswat Hanjara Mayyita<\/em>(1989, Voices from a Dead Throat)\u2014 she has published a book dealing with political issues regarding women, al-Mar\u2019a wa Ishkaliyyat al-Dimuqratiyya<\/em> (Women and the Ambiguities of Democracy). and one on the history of Jam\u2019i al-Fina, the famous square in Marrakech.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

CREATION<\/strong>
\nAt night
\nI abandon all modesty
\nI open both shutters
\nof my sun
\nI lose my head
\nI fall prey
\nto a mad ardor
\nI swell myself with waves
\nlike a sea
\nat the apex of its tide
\nMy tempests are unleashed
\nin sequence
\nMy light pierces
\nI shine
\nlike the lightning bolt that zig-
\nzags behind the cloud
\nI scintillate
\nlike a chandelier
\nof divine light
\nI persevere in error, that
\nMistress of Creation
\nI haul myself onto the throne
\nand onto the star\u2019s breast
\nI consume my madness and my arts
\non all my surface
\nand underground places
\nthe king of the forest roars
\nMy lion roars with love
\nfor the red star
\nthat pierces the horizons<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THINGS HAVING NAMES<\/strong><\/p>\n

At moonset
\nI was born
\nDawn leaned over the universe
\nand night\u2019s breast
\nin rage tore its tunic<\/p>\n

The poor parents sat down
\non the threshold of God\u2019s earth
\nThat\u2019s when the birds of paradise sang
\nThe eternal branch bent down
\nshadowed the earth
\nthen covered itself
\nin silk
\nand sweetbrier<\/p>\n

On the day of my birth
\nI was thunderstruck
\nMount Tor appeared to me
\nand behind it the marvels of light
\nand the face of God
\nI heard the grandiose voice murmur:
\nO creature of the earth
\ngo to the pond and the water
\nto the blue in the eye of the phenix
\nand you will find the man bending
\nunder the burden of earth
\nDon\u2019t get sad
\nIn your right hand
\nthere will be clouds
\nand in your left
\nthe glebe
\nDon\u2019t be sparing with the water
\nfor earth is in a state of neglect
\nGod spoke to me
\nbefore sunrise
\nThe branches broke down in tears
\nand the world still gave itself over to sin
\n\u201cPray, o daughter of the breeze and the storms
\nYour prayer will refresh those who suffer
\nthe torments of Gehenna
\nwill soothe the afflicted in this universe\u201d
\nI prayed
\ncalamity did not disappear
\nand His infinite mercy did not come down
\nupon this world of misfortune
\nEach time I want to pray
\nI have to fight those who seize the mihrab
\nand post watchmen in front of the mosques
\nMy prayers have not purified the universe
\nbut I keep praying<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

translated from A. La\u00e2bi\u2019s French versions by P.J.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working on the Maghrebi anthology, a strong discovery for me was the Moroccan poet Malika al-Assimi. Here is the commentary we wrote for her followed by two poems: Malika al-Assimi, a poet, writer and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,91,103],"tags":[980],"class_list":["post-6245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maghrebi-literature","category-poetry","category-translation","tag-malika-al-assimi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6245"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6257,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6245\/revisions\/6257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}