Poetry
لا بد من صنعاء
Not translated into English
Abdul-Aziz al-Maqalih · 1971
Synopsis
The poet's first collection, opened by the poem that gives it its title, “Sanaa is a must”, taken from a line of Imam al-Shafi'i: Sanaa is a must, even if the journey is long. Written in the sixties, far from his native city, the poems express nostalgia for Sanaa and the will to return there, celebrate the revolution that overthrew the imamate and hope for the city's freedom. Most are in free verse; a few keep the single rhyme and the couplet of the tradition.
Context
The collection appeared in 1971; the Al-Ittihad article that presents it is dated Alexandria, 9 August. Its title fixes what would become the obsession of the whole body of work: in al-Maqalih the city becomes a poetic, almost mythical symbol, down to a Book of Sanaa published in 1999. Having returned in 1978 after fifteen years of absence, the poet scarcely left Sanaa again and refused to leave it during the war. The collection was followed, in the following years, by poems on Marib and a letter in verse to the hero Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan.
Who it is for
Poems in Arabic, most of them in free verse; no French or English translation of the collection has been found.
Prizes and reception
He is presented as the best-known and most decorated Yemeni poet of the twentieth century.
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The pages consulted to check this page.