Amman — The Arab Foundation for Studies and Publishing in Beirut has released a book titled The Seven Pirates of Poetry and A Shoe as White as the Wave: Two Poetic Plays, by Jordanian poet and scholar Dr. Abdullah Abu Shumais, a literary work that revives several of the most prominent voices of Arabic modernist poetry within an imaginative theatrical space, blending poetry, dialogue, theater, and symbolism.
اضافة اعلان
The book contains two poetic plays that differ in length and structure, yet intersect in their watery atmosphere and open-ended questions. The first, titled "The Seven Pirates of Poetry," brings together seven of the most prominent figures of Arabic modernist poetry aboard a ship led by a mysterious captain, where poetic, critical, and human dialogues unfold between them, laced with irony and humor. The second play, "A Shoe as White as the Wave," conjures a mysterious seaside atmosphere through the interrogation of a man accused of drowning a woman who had been aboard his boat with him.
In both works, Abu Shumais uses fluid poetic language, adhering to the khabab meter ("fa'lun"), giving the theatrical dialogue a poetic rhythm suited to the nature of both texts. He also uses imagination to evoke well-known poetic figures and experiences, while leaving broader space for ambiguity, symbolism, and interpretation in the second play.
Through their differing paths, the two plays offer an experience built on using the sea, the boat, and the waves as spaces for dialogue, conflict, and questioning, opening the text to multiple levels of reading and placing characters and events in a zone where imagined events intertwine with poetic and symbolic meaning.
"The Seven Pirates of Poetry" brings together the captain and seven of the most prominent figures of Arabic modernist poetry: Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, Nazik al-Malaika, Salah Abdel Sabour, Amal Dunqul, Nizar Qabbani, Muhammad al-Maghout, and Mahmoud Darwish, in an imaginative space where they meet a mysterious captain aboard a ship.
According to its opening, the play's events begin in the summer of 2008, aboard a ship in an unspecified location. Across nine scenes, tension builds between the poets and the captain, with poetic, critical, and human dialogues intertwining, in an atmosphere dominated by irony, humor, and tolerance.
In the play, Abu Shumais evokes the poets' voices and styles through new poems that echo their own poetic legacies, making those poems a subject of discussion among them, in an experience that blends poetic imagination with the revival of literary figures.
In the opening scene, the captain appears standing at the door of the poets' room aboard the ship, while the poets sit or stand scattered around the spacious room. A sarcastic dialogue unfolds between them, beginning with the captain asking how they're doing, before informing them that a seventh poet is about to arrive.
The play adheres throughout to the khabab meter, in fluid, unaffected language, the same meter used in the second play, "A Shoe as White as the Wave."
The short play's events unfold across three scenes, built on interrogation dialogues between an investigator and a man accused of drowning a woman who had been aboard his boat with him, with events taking a mysterious turn where questions, truth, and symbolism intertwine.
In the first interrogation, the investigator and the man sit in a room, a table between them holding printed photographs on A4 paper. The investigator shows the man one of the photos before beginning a series of questions.
Both plays share a clearly watery atmosphere, evoking the boat, the sea, and the waves, and both are marked by ambiguity and symbolism, offering a literary experience that blends poetry, theater, and imagination, in a space where poetic figures, human reflection, and open questions sit side by side.
Resource: Al-Ghad. Reporting: Aziza Ali
