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Al-Wegayyan tackles fundamental issues with poems

A Kuwaiti poet of reason, serenityThis is the second in a series of arti-cles on selected Kuwaiti poets andauthors who have enriched the literaryscene in the Arab world. Editor

By Rima A. Mneimneh

Special to the Arab Times

Poetry is the voice of the imaginationcaptured by a talented writer trans-forming it into evoking, ordered andrhyming phrases beckoning a blend of thepower and beauty of a language com-bined into untrodden, scintillating andtowering horizons. Written tales mightportray aspects of a nation, a communityor a historical phase, but poetry seems totranscend these limitations to hover elu-sively into a world of wonder and charm.The imagery trapped in ordered wordstructures and musically rhythmic sen-tences simply awaken a world withdreamlike sensations and heartfelt ela-tion.

It certainly takes an exceptionally tal-ented, sensitive and highly informedwriter to unfold the secrets and wondersof his or her language in order to writeunforgettable poetry. Much has been saidabout poetry and what are the effects ithas on a persons perception of the worldaround him and of himself. Therenowned Johann Wolfgang von Goethe(1749-1832), the dramatist, novelist andpoet wrote about the influence of poetry -among other factors - on man, he saidMan ought to hear a little music, read alittle poetry and see a fine picture everyday of his life, in order that worldlyaffairs may not obliterate the sense of thebeautiful which God has implanted in thehuman soul. However, the skill of writ-ing poetry is not left to hover astray with-out certain sensed and felt orderly patternthat governs the flow of words.

DefinesRobert Graves (1895-1985), the British

author and classical scholar defines apoet as he who ... should master therules of grammar before he attempts tobend or break them. On the other hand,the famous poet John Keats (1795-1821),who is considered one of the key roman-tic poets along with Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) who is known for his elaborateword choice and imagery especially in aseries of odes that remain popular poeticmasterpieces and other poets have writtenabout poetry and its significance. Keats,for example, identified poetry as such,Poetry should please by a fine excessand not by singularity. It should strike thereader as a wording of his own highestthoughts, and appear almost as a remem-brance.

In the Arabian peninsula, where theparticularities of its topography and itsdeep-rooted history have jointly helpedto shape and mold its truly opulent anddiverse literary legacy in both its flanksprose and verse. In Kuwait, a galaxy ofpoets have engraved impressive versesthat reflect nature, life and the successiverapid and fluctuating waves that haveoccurred in distant and near past. AKuwaiti poet and prose writer whose rea-son and serenity in addressing fundamen-tal issues influencing his fellow men andwomen in his homeland and mankind atlarge had recounted anecdotes from hisown personal experience; an advocate ofjustice, has an unwavering trust in hispeople and the need to overcome defeatand weakness and to be wary of obstaclesimpeding his countrys progress andprosperity.

RewardingIt has been a real rewarding experience

reading excerpts from Al-Wegayyanspoetry and his rational analyses of histor-ical and poetic facts in his writings mostof which are present at the KuwaitiWriters League Library in Udailyaharea. Al-Wegayyan has been involved ina number of literary and cultural activi-ties throughout his life, locally andabroad, has been incessantly hailed byfellow scholars, writers and poets for hisserene, subtle and rational analyses offacts and events and has been awardedmany prestigious accolades.

Dr Khalifa al-Wegayyan was born in

1941. He graduated with a bachelorsdegree in Arabic language from KuwaitUniversity. In 1974, he obtained his mas-ters degree which was the first to havebeen published at the expense of KuwaitUniversity. His PhD was about a promi-nent Abbasid poet Al-Buhturi: it was enti-tled An Artistic Assessment of thePoetry of Al-Buhturi. Selected publica-tions written by Al-Wegayyan are Al-Mubhiroun maa al-Reyah meaningSeafarers with the Wind publishedtwice, once in 1974 and another in 1980,Tahawulat Al-Azmina meaning TheFluctuations of Epochs, Sheir Al-Buhturi or The Poetry of al-Buhturi,the anthologies Al-Khurouj min Al-Daeira or Exodus from the Circle,Hasad Al-Reeh or The Harvest of theWind.

Many critics have praised the poetsvision and rationality in recounting hisperception of the various facets of lifeand events - in verse and prose - happen-ing in the Arab world. An excerpt fromhis poem entitled The Bride and thePirates, evoking the horror of invasionof his country Kuwait, a translatedexcerpt from Arabic reads Whenever thesurface of lucidity and purity is touched/The pirates fingers/ Claws that capture inthe shade of darkness the harbingers ofdawn/ The warmth of the sun, the vigourof spring/ The shades of civilization, the

waves awaken/ That which is not familiarwith villainy/ Never known succumb-ness/ The beaches roar. In a ballad forchildren Al-Wegayyan writes We, chil-dren of Kuwait/ We are the flowers of thegarden/ We are beacons of truth/ We arefoes of rifles/ We refuse to see in ourmeadow the face of fires.

In Al-Khalifas book entitled Al-Qadieh al-Arabieh fi al-Sheir Al-

Kuwaiti meaning the The ArabianAffair in the Kuwaiti Poetry, the poetexpounds many key topics in which hehighlights the role of poetry, he states thatThe role of poetry is not limited to justtransposing events and recording it mostcandidly, or projecting it photographical-ly with accuracy.

This role is usually denoted to journal-ists, whereas the artistic experience oughtto be an experience for the mind provid-ed that he [the poet] does not allow it toflee the poetrys own world that ofvisions, dreams and images and that iswhy, probably, imagination constitutes aquintessential element in the poetic expe-rience.

P.S. I would like to thank the poet DrKhalifa al-Wegayyan for conversing withme about his life and his poetic experi-ence, and also Leila M. Saleh for hervaluable 330-paged reference book ofcomprehensive biographies about 57 dis-tinguished Kuwaiti authors who aremembers of the Kuwaiti League, whohave truly enriched the contemporaryArabic literature with captivating andunforgettable literary works. My thanksgo to the League also for providing mewith an assisted access to their resource-ful and diverse Arabic book collectionavailable at the Kuwaiti Writers LiteraryLeagues Library in Udailiyah area inKuwait.

28

ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2010

Book jacket of Selected Poems byKhalifa Al-Wegayyan Continued on Page 29

Co-author says recession a catalyst for frank talk

Book urges couples to get financially nakedNEW YORK, Jan 9, (RTRS): If youre will-ing to undress in front of someone in a rela-tionship, you should be able to undress finan-cially as well, say the authors of a new book.

Money can be one of the most difficultsubjects for couples to talk about, and GetFinancially Naked aims to help them sharenot only details of their finances but alsotheir thoughts, attitudes and fears aboutmoney.

People feel this intense feeling of shamearound money, said co-author ManishaThakor, stemming from people feelingjudged by how much they earn, how muchthey know about finances and how they han-dle their money.

The steep recession and dire job markethas been a blessing in disguise that haspushed couples and families to talk aboutmoney, she told Reuters in an interview.

Losing a job or getting furloughed orhaving your hours cut forces you to have thisconversation, she said. Unless there is acatalyst, people will avoid this conversationlike the plague.

Get Financially Naked encourages cou-ples to consider their financial compatibility

looking at each persons interest in deal-ing with money, knowledge of money andbehavior toward money, she said.

You meet someone special, and societyencourages you to analyze whether or notyou are physically compatible, spirituallycompatible, emotionally compatible andintellectual compatible, she said.

But this dimension of financial compara-bility is not something that is ever talkedabout.

Couples can identify gaps and conflicts intheir financial compatibility and addressthem, she said.

You have to work out a compromise thesame way you would in any other area ofyour married life, Thakor said.

For example, if one person is a spenderand the other is a saver, they could set a dol-lar amount, above which the spender agreesto consult the saver before spending, shesaid.

Maybe they set an amount that each onecan spend per month, no questions asked, ormaybe they meet regularly with a financialplanner, she said.

You should be willing to get financially

Rarest, oldest manuscripts tracked in 472 pages

Syrian researcher publishes book on rise of Arab manuscriptsDAMASCUS, Jan 9, (KUNA): The SyrianPublic Publishing Authority recently pub-lished a book by a local heritageresearcher, Khaled Tabah, that tracks theArab manuscript from its early rise, untilits spread in Levant countries.

The author, in the introduction to hisbook entitled The DamasceneManuscripts: Arab Manuscript, its Riseand Spread, says that Damascus keepstoday the rarest collection of manuscriptsin the world, formerly held in the vaults ofOmariah and Dhiyaiyah libraries ofwhich only a few remained today.

Further, there are about 158 manu-

scripts that go back to more than 1,000years, besides the oldest manuscript acopy of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal Al-Shaibanis Book of Questions.Damascus is also home to a copy of Al-Farzdaqs collection of poetry, one of theoldest manuscripts in the world with foot-notes, copied before the year 331 H.

Booksellers thrived in Damascus at atime when it was fraught with scholarswho came from every corner of the globe,the author said.

The area which was called theMaksiah market held book and manu-script auctions, attracting people to buy

rare books.Damascus has kept precious manu-

scripts in the vaults of the Zahriah Library,then in Al-Assad National Library, andsome manuscripts were added from theother governorates in keeping of thetime-honored tradition of preserving man-uscripts, restoring and binding them.

The book, set in 472 pages and divid-ed into eight chapters, defines the kindsof the manuscripts and divides them intohand-written and hand-coped ones.

As for date that allows a book to becalled a manuscript, the author noted thatany book copied before 1900 AD (1317

H) could be called a manuscript, whileanything following this date was callednew or modern manuscript.

The author also touched upon theflourishing of manuscripts in Damascusand other Arab and Muslim countries,pointing to the setting up of the first Arabbookstore by Caliph Muawiya Ibn AbiSufiyan, then the rise of the Abbasids, theera of Caliph Mansour whose helpedspread of book markets and paper facto-ries. Thus, he concluded that Arabicbooks thrived with the flourish of knowl-edge, the scholars forums and the sup-port of Caliphs.

naked, said Thakor. At the point that youfeel that youve found the person you wantto be with for the long term, that is the point

at which you should start having that con-versation.

Thakor and co-author Sharon Kedar

wrote an earlier book, On My Own TwoFeet: A Modern Girls Guide to PersonalFinance.

Get Financially Naked is published byAdams Business, an imprint of AdamsMedia, a division of F+W Media Inc.

Books

Book carries lesson in moral courage

Journalists unbowedin Cold War Hungary

By JohnDaniszewski

Enemies of the People: My FamilysJourney to America (Simon &Schuster, 257 pages, $26), by KatiMarton: Coinciding with the 20thanniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain,a remarkable book part memoir, partfamily quest, part history has emergedto tell a new generation of the corrupt sys-tem that was Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism.

Kati Martons revisiting of her parentsordeal as correspondents in their nativeHungary in the 1950s speaks in micro-cosm to the nature of socialism and thecruelty, deprivation and fear it visitedupon her family, among the hundreds ofmillions of people in the Soviet Unionand east-central Europe at the height ofthe Cold War.

Urbane, free-spirited and evidentlyfearless people, Martons parents arecaught up in the Communist statesmachinery of power and dogma, and thestory recounts how repression shapedtheir lives and ultimately the lives of theauthor and her siblings.

RecollectionsMarton, a well-known journalist and

author, records events that took placemore than a half-century ago, based onher childhood recollections, interviews,archival research and the dossier on herfamily meticulously kept by theHungarian secret police and now avail-able to her. (The files are so detailed thatMarton found a drawing she made as apreschooler, faithfully squirreled away bythe state.)

Martons father, Endre, and mother,Ilona, became correspondents for TheAssociated Press and United Press respec-tively at the end of the 1940s.

Holocaust survivors (their Jewishbackground unknown to Kati Martonuntil adulthood), the Martons had metduring World War II and spent the lastyears of the war together dodging Nazisand the Germans fascist allies inHungary.

Sociable, bridge-playing and eager tomingle with diplomats and otherWesterners in Budapest in the early post-war years before Communism tightenedits grip, they happened onto careers asjournalists in part because of their lan-guage skills.

Their jobs allowed them to live stylish-ly above the means of ordinaryHungarians and to serve as unofficialhosts for visiting correspondents who fre-quented their apartment and drank andsmoked late into the night, sharing gossipand tips about the goings-on of the regime.

The story contains contemporaryechoes because many of the choices anddilemmas that confronted the Martonshave little changed. Independent journal-ists in many countries today are subjectedto much the same pressures. They arespied upon, made to feel disloyal, subject-ed to regular interviews and work undera cloud of suspicion, intimidation, orworse. To a large or small degree, theysuffer at the hands of secret services, justas the Martons became playthings of theircountrys feared yet often stumblingStalinist police apparatus, the AVO.

ChallengesSimilarly, organizations that hire local

journalists today face ethical challengesin offering support and encouragementfor their work, while assuming moralresponsibility for their well-being as thejournalists carry out difficult and danger-ous duties.

In the case of Endre Marton, his man-agers at New York headquarters come

across in letters in the book as rigid, dis-tant and insensitive. Frank J. Starzel, thengeneral manager of The Associated Press,refuses in 1952 to authorize $3,000 for anattempt by the Martons to be smuggledout of the country because he thought itrisky and unlikely to succeed. Later, hebalked at Martons desire to work in theUnited States after the family had suc-ceeded in escaping Hungary, althougheventually AP did place Marton inWashington. (Starzel, APs chief execu-tive from 1948-62, died in 1994.)

Endre Marton wound up imprisonedfrom February 1955 until August 1956,accused of handing out state secrets. Ilonawas arrested four months later, with cold-hearted apparatchiks leaving Kati and herolder sister, Julia, abandoned and weepingon the sidewalk in one of the memoirsmost poignant scenes.

A political thaw resulted in the parentsrelease, reunion and permission to workagain in time to cover Hungarys ill-fatedOctober 1956 anti-communist revolution.After the inevitable clampdown, theMartons high profile made it expedientfor the regime to let them go. Theyreached New York in 1957, where theycollected the prestigious George PolkAward for coverage of the uprising.

DiscoveringHailed as heroes, the Martons

embraced America. Endre Martonworked for two decades in Washington asa respected diplomatic correspondent forthe AP while his wife took up a careerteaching. He died in 2005 at age 95, oneyear after her death.

Through her research, Marton comes toknow her father and mother anew, discov-ering more than she may have wishedabout old foibles and indiscretions, weak-nesses and moments of doubt. At thesame time, she gains a new appreciationof the durability of their marriage, theirlove for their children and their funda-mental honor. She opens a window on herown feelings about her parents, strongindividuals not always easy for a daughterto live with or understand.

They are vastly more interesting,shrewder, and more complicated that Iever realized, she concludes. And muchmore human.

How they suffered and prevailed, setforth in this affectionate and telling book,is more than a history. Enemies of thePeople: My Familys Journey to Americacarries a lesson in moral courage in jour-nalism and in life for a new epoch.

In this book cover image released bySimon & Schuster, Enemies of thePeople: My Familys Journey toAmerica by Kati Marton, is shown.

(AP)

The Kuwaiti poet Dr Khalifa Al-Wegayyan.