Interviewed by Abdul Majid Amayay-Oujda
For years, Moroccan poet Sameh Darwish has been experimenting with poetry in a different way than the familiar experiences in the Arab poetry scene, where he chose to write a Haiku poem of Japanese origin.
And his experience of creative Alapak, and the experience of Haikou in Morocco and the Arab region in general, Darwish speaks in this interview conducted by Al Jazeera Net:
How did you find yourself in the heyday of the Haiku poem while you were looking for another formula for writing with elements different from the mainstream?
I was constantly looking for aesthetic tools that would make me add something to the Moroccan and Arab poetic scene from the language I write.
The result of this thought was the "Giggles", which was printed in 2010 with the support of the Ministry of Culture. It represents my experience from the 1990s until the beginning of the second millennium, and in this experiment I wrote short and intensive poetry texts. In this experiment I found myself approaching the poem of origin Japanese.
This means that you started to experiment with writing the Haiku poem even before reading about this school?
There was relative knowledge, but it did not rise to the level of interest and research, but when I found that some texts take this poetic form, I deepened my knowledge of Haikou and read everything that was translated into Arabic and even into some French and English languages. I can say that I was in the Haiku labor where I do not know.
When I became aware of this experience and its specificities, especially the rules of the aesthetic haiku poem, I said that this would be a kind of addition to Arabic poetry, and even suitable to ask deep questions about Arabic poetry and its issues in general.
After reading about it, have you tried in your new texts to be disciplined by the characteristics of this school?
Of course, we can not call a poem "Haiku" unless it meets the conditions and rules of writing the Haiku, because writing the Arabic Haiku is a difficult task, considering that the Arabic poetry is metaphorical, eloquent and distinct.
Based on the above, it is not easy to convince the Arab reader in another poetic form, based on aesthetic characteristics far from metaphor and eloquence as I am the poet.
Therefore, my bet and the bet of writing the Haiku is to write it with its classical rules first, then second to convince the recipient of other features using a direct language. In short, the Haiku is a scene that is stripped of reality with a kind of realism and other aesthetic conditions.
You say that Haiku is a direct language, but there is a philosophical whim if you say that in your poems, is not that a contradiction and contradiction with what you say?
Haiku to be written as a child, but with the experience of Sheikh, the position is taken from reality, from living and life, and not photographed as the image does,
If the Haiku takes advantage of modern electronic techniques from image and image, this benefit becomes a simple and deep language, and many people are easy to do, but the deeper the human is to discover that Haiku of the most difficult types of hair.
Are the characteristics that are different to the characteristics of Arab poetry, which I talked about, what makes Arab poets avoid the experience of writing the Haiku?
Let me tell you first that the Japanese Arab culture began more than a century ago, and especially since the beginning of the twentieth century, and came close to the culture and haiku poetry of some writers and poets, including the Moroccan Abdelkabir al-Khatibi, who wrote texts in the Haiku orbit, but there are many poets wrote Haiku, But not entirely subject to its rules, and they wrote it with modesty, and I also mention Ahmad Bennis.
| Sameh Darwish says that the late Moroccan writer Abdelkirib Khatibi (pictured) is one of the first to write in the orbit of the Haikou (island) |
The friction between the Japanese and Arabic cultures made the Haiku a crossroads, so we can consider the Arab Haiku as a diversion of the Arab poetic scene, and not as a substitute for any other poetry.
Let me also say that the wave of writing the Haiku has grown considerably after the Arab frustrations, especially after the revolutions of the so-called Arab Spring, led by young poets especially.
This wave has also emerged in the context of the search for alternatives that are not only political, but also artistic and aesthetic open to other creative circles, considering that we as Arab countries have spent centuries hostage to Western culture, and therefore it is time to benefit from other cultural orbits.
In the same context, there can not be said that there are a limited number of poets who use the Haikou. On the contrary, there are thousands of young poetic voices. In Morocco, for example, I can say that there are dozens of voices. Web pages interested in all countries, but there are poets of Arab origins also write Haiku in other languages, and became the Japanese Haiku itself benefits from the experiences of other languages.
Are we, then, in front of the establishment of an Arab school for Haiku? Of course, if we recognize that Japanese Haiku today benefits from other languages?
Yes, the Haiku reacts in other languages, and in Japan is constantly evolving. It was initially associated with nature and human relations with nature. After that, he took care of social situations and other issues, and now he is engaged in all that surrounds man.
We conclude by talking about your future projects and your new?
Before that, I would like to point out that the Moroccan experience is advanced in the Arab scene, and we are in constant contact with friends and poets in a number of Arab countries to enrich the experience in the region. We also dedicated the 2016 version of the literary procession that organizes Boujdah (eastern Morocco) The Haiku is now a site in the world scene, and we are participating in many international gatherings.
For Jadidi, after the release of my poetry "Khnavis luminous", which collected my experience in this type of poetry, followed by the "100 Haco" and the joint "100 Haikou and Haikou", which translated into Japanese, French, English and Spanish, Birds flying deep, "and the second title" What is more with dew drops "early next year.