“Bread and Oil” .. When letters bend their necks in front of pain and nostalgia

I don't say the letter in prose...

I don't hear the voice echoing.

My words slip through the clouds.

Refuse to line up.

With these verses, the Syrian plastic artist and poet Abdel Razzaq Kanjo opens his new book "Bread and Oil", to put the reader in front of his words that refuse to line up in a pattern, declaring from the beginning his rebellion against the systemic and traditional in Arabic poetry.

After decades spent as a traveling artist on his travels, communicating with the recipient only through the visual images of the paintings, Kanjo found himself - in his fifties - resigned to the temptation of the literary image that he created.

The Diwan "Bread and Oil" comes in 248 pages of medium volume, and the topics of his poems vary between contemplative, humanitarian, and societal political topics inspired by the tragedy that the Syrian people have been experiencing for a decade and more.

Saraqib.. an address for pain and nostalgia

The spatial element dominates Kanjo's poetry. He writes wonderful poems about Aleppo, "Was the thirsty water in Aleppo", Homs "the rugged Homs", and Damascus beautiful poems, in which emotional feelings vary according to their different themes;

From being proud of the fragrant nature of those cities and the nobility of their history, to the deep belief in the victory of their people over their oppressors:

Put down the white gauze

in front of the man's face, so as not to sneeze the sight. Take the

black scarf away from her.

Sadness tore

us apart..and the mind was stung with its ashes..and made

us brown.

….

My sword is broken..asleep in its sheath..no

longer ignites the flashes of sparks.

….

The rugged hummus in its huddle... The

olive knight receives it..

Carpets are spread in its yards, and the

eyes shed bloody tears... that

obscure the sight.

But the most beautiful poems remain those that overflow with nostalgia for Saraqib - the poet's birthplace - the city whose people were displaced at the beginning of the Syrian war as a result of the brutal bombardment that it was subjected to:

I will take off my sandals on the thresholds of wandering,

homelessness, and displacement.

So sprinkle me a handful of your dirt and scrub me

with it for tayammum.

...

She balanced what was between her _purely_

and that chip..in Zamzam.

….

I came to you yesterday before today..

to establish my prayer over you..

begging for forgiveness.. so excuse me

if I completed my Umrah there..

and I brought you the white pilgrimage belt.. I spread it on your

doorsteps in prayer.. so that I would drop the

obligatory duty.

After Kanjo had been expatriate from Saraqib for years of study and work between Aleppo, Idlib, Bulgaria, Sofia and other cities and countries, he decided to return to Saraqib.

But the war prevented him from achieving his desire, and Kanjo told Al Jazeera Net: "In every travel, I would cut off the specified time to return to my city, my land and my farm... I did not know the reason for this nostalgia until after I tasted the bitterness and humiliation of the forced displacement that recently occurred to a large segment of the people. The Syrian, and I am one of them."

victory

In addition to the dominant spatial element, victory emerges as a major "theme" of the Diwan "Bread and Oil".

Although the poet is aware of the horror of the tragedy and the number of setbacks that the Syrian people have experienced and is experiencing, he does not reproduce it poetically except to emphasize the inevitability of victory, as in the poem “God’s Promise is the Truth”:

More true than an hourglass..

and more generous than winter clouds..

(..)

“Muhammad” ascends towards the sky.. and

flows to the table of “Jesus” standing up and

blesses the “dinner”.

Welcome pregnant and portable.

A promise.. After that,

there will be no misery on earth,

hunger or misery..

....

And may God bear witness.. and the poor after their displacement

, and whoever was in the stomachs of fish.. and the

disappeared prisoner.. from his family..

and the souls of our souls.. the martyrs:

we shall be victorious.

The poem “God’s Promise of Truth” is recited textually by the poem “Himalaya”, which is nothing but a textual confirmation of the victory of the Syrian people over their oppressors, no matter how tyrannized they may be, like a glowing light at the end of a dark tunnel:

The cry of the oppressed behind disappearance..

oppression is worse..

than the accumulation of burning sand dunes

or the falling of boulders..

from the mountains of volcanoes..

over the waves of the mighty seas.

….

And victory - O eternity - is nothing

but patience for a day... and an hour.

Concerning this deep belief in victory, Kanjo tells Al Jazeera Net: "We were raised to love the homeland, its social fabric, and free religious belief without extremism or coercion, and the war is a painful nightmare that has passed over the country. forcibly returned to his safe country.

Bread and oil... when letters bend their necks

Kanjo follows on the stylistic level in the "bread and oil" of modernist poetry;

The poems are characterized by a dense rhythm and sweet music that reflects a poetic uniqueness confirmed by the symbolic language, and historical references with deep connotations that Kanjo brings, through which he re-reads the events of the recent past, as is the case in the poem “Cold Shadows of Tents” in which he laments the situation of the Syrians, addressing his city, then turns back He tells her:

Feed me from a suit of hunger... after the stones have boiled...

and withhold the secret from Ibn Al-Khattab... lest he lock me up and flog me...

So I... I don't mind the ball again.

………………

I am from that.. even

if we are young by invasion, drought and homelessness.

Or we separated, migrating to a distance,

or ascending to the galaxy.

Then Kanjou addresses Umar ibn al-Khattab, begging:

Take my hand full... of what I have... and give me

from your inherited love... and a link..!!

And remove from my distressed chest... a

heartbreak.

Concerning his style, Kanjo says: "Even if my writing experience did not come in the form of a classical poem, I always strive for the musical effect as much as possible. Also, my knowledge of some translations of Western poetry enriched my attempts to rebel against the part of the poem in terms of length or length. The brevity, but I relied on Al-Qafla for the idea, influenced by the great poet Omar Abu Risha and his likes from the great poets.

He added, "Therefore, it is not surprising if the reader finds my vocabulary oscillating and oscillating between prose and poetry sometimes, because the first and last goal is to bring out the idea and deliver it to the recipient in the simplest forms. I also always strive to select the simplest understandable vocabulary and I will never need the reader for my pieces to return to the Arabic dictionary."

Because Kanjo's poems are emotionally linked to the Syrian people and their issues, he writes describing himself and his poetry:

I do not lend poetry

nor do I work with it...

Neither verbiage

nor short speech will save me.

I erased every letter I wrote..

with sea water.. I washed

and purified.. under the gutter of rain.

…

..it is useless to sleep in tents..singing.

It does not benefit the dead lament.

He does not satisfy the hungry with beautiful words,

nor beautiful pictures.

Refuse my letters alignment in the layout.

She bows her neck.. in shame

and refuses to speak.. the words are pronounced.

Sad, oppressed and bored.

Thus, Kanjo’s letters bend their necks in shame at the Syrians’ tragedy at times, and revolt in anger against their oppressors at times, but they always maintain their belief in victory.