Poetry · A way to begin
قالت لي السمراء
Not translated into English
Nizar Qabbani · 1944
Synopsis
The Brunette Told Me: some thirty love poems, opened by a page addressed to the reader. In the first person, the poet speaks of a woman's body and of his own desire: a passer-by in a startled dress who sets a whole street in motion, a first meeting, a woman glimpsed in a café, another who confesses she is deprived of love, letters he demands. One poem asks whether he truly loves the woman whose sight sends the blood rushing to his head, and another celebrates the beloved's breast.
Context
The young man had the book printed at his own expense in September 1944, in three hundred copies, while still studying law. The preface is by Munir al-Ajlani, Minister of Public Instruction. Students seized on it and religious circles in Damascus protested to the poet's father, then to the minister, who refused to withdraw his preface. In 1946, Sheikh Ali al-Tantawi savaged it in the journal al-Risala. The author would recount this quarrel in his autobiography.
Who it is for
Short, rhythmic poems in a clear language; the tone, sensual and direct for its time, is less surprising today.
Prizes and reception
The book that launched its author and, from the first volume, made him the poet of love and of women of his generation.