Recently published, by Arwaq Publishing - Cairo, the first book of the Yemeni poet and writer, Diaf Al-Buraq, in 260 pages from the center pieces.
Al-Buraq, one of the young Yemeni writers who emerged in the period of the war in Yemen for the eighth year, opens with writings that oppose war, incite peace and love of life, spread a smile, question beauty and resurrect it from its burial places.
It also incites acceptance and coexistence with the other, and the exchange of roses and songs, instead of fiery political statements, missiles and missiles exchanged by the parties to the conflict.
In what looks like a dedication, Al-Buraq writes, "It is disgusting to make an introduction to this book...it is even more disgusting to call it a book...I am fragmenting to such an extent."
And when he writes this at the beginning of his first book, it is an expression of the very harsh conditions that a young poet and writer is going through in a country afflicted by war.
Young Yemeni poet Dhaif Al-Buraq (communication sites)
The poet in his poems
The author of the book grew up an orphan, as his mother died early and his maternal grandfather adopted him in the far reaches of Taiz (southwest of Yemen), where he spent his childhood, before moving to Sanaa, where he completed his university studies, last year.
Al-Buraq lived through difficult conditions compared to the conditions of poets and writers of his generation in the country, so he struggled to complete his university studies in law at Sana’a University.
From the space of solitude open to the wind and the cold, Al-Buraq took upon himself to write, as a daily and irreversible destiny, and from here he had a fixed column in the literary Qalam magazine, which is a magazine issued electronically at the end of each month, where he writes his monthly article, and also writes in Other Yemeni websites.
The book begins with a poetic text, which is one of more than 85 poetic texts and prose writings and an article whose main theme is “writing and war”;
Starting with a text titled “The Margins of the Damned Window,” Al-Buraq says, “When war breaks out/ Do not get nervous/ Prepare for joy/ Relax in your place/ Say nothing/ Go out into the streets from the house/ Focus on breaking news/ Worry about a stray projectile/ These things will Kill you, slow down."
He incites Diyaf to write to be a daily act that would not make urgent news of the war and its grievances distress the soul;
It is a call throughout the pages of the book: "Writing is one stone with which we kill life and death at the same time / Hence our feeling of immortality."
In a text entitled “Writing and War,” Al-Buraq writes, “In war, writing either wins or perishes, and it has no third option.”
He adds, "What I write is enough to make a sad pillow happy, enough to pull out a screaming child under the rubble, enough to block the path in front of a sniper's bullet aimed precisely at my heart, and it is also enough to discover the path to freedom."
Writing in the shadows of war
“Every beautiful creative writing is necessarily against war,” Al-Buraq goes to this saying, while recounting the moment of rain falling on the Sawan area in which he resides: “The rain is falling on (Sawan). It is a beautiful evening, and the children of our neighborhood are now playing in the streets and alleys. The lights are Few abroad. Children's joys are different writing against war."
Al-Buraq says, "I go to the street every day, mixing with people, listening to what is going on in their souls, discovering their deep wounds, and then writing them with passion and honesty, with tenderness and freedom. I write from the middle of the streets, from the bus seats. I walk and write. My writing is devoid of lies. decorations and complications.
The texts of the book do not stop at the war and its diaries, but it goes beyond that to questioning the spirit of beauty in things and invokes symbols and celebrities from influential writers and philosophers.
In a text titled “Osho,” meaning the Indian sage, Al-Buraq writes: “In time of war, Osho is the only philosopher who makes me cheerful as if I were a green branch, swaying fluently and unbreakable.”
He continues, "What a very noble teacher, full of love, beauty and freedom. Osho intoxicates me with the sweetness of the beauty of the universe, melting in astonishment, and takes me step by step to the path of true happiness. He heals my psychological wounds with an ointment purer than natural honey, like pure poetic music."
The writer’s moment is disturbed by the reports and bloody scenes that the news bulletins carry, and the bodies shown on the screen, which makes him in a state of aversion and anxiety about this warring reality in which he finds death, not the homeland “Here the lust for death is greater than the rose of the homeland / the rose of love is not enough to kick the death ball Out of the room, out of the heart.
And yet, he continues, "Between the room and the heart are savage corpses crawling towards my face, observing every word that comes out of my mouth, and sticking their claws and fangs even into my imagination. The thought of these corpses has the power to destroy everything that should be repaired in the body of life."
In order to forget the ghost of corpses scattered everywhere, the writer proposes closing the doors of sadness, then calls his beloved in poetry: “Yesterday’s words tire me / This sour pavement rips me / Get my brain out of here”, but the most important thing in his message fleeing from the corpses of the political and cultural current is “Do not open a door.” new to sorrow/ Do not close me to you/ Take me a little bit/ With your delicate little mouth/ Or the feather of Van Gogh with which he ate.”
Between the lines of Al-Buraq's book, the reader will find that the number of articles and narrative texts is more than the number of poetic texts, but this does not depart from a major topic in general, which is "writing in times of war."
At the moment when it is difficult for the poet to write a poem, he creates an infinite space in which he expresses, in a graceful and lofty language, his tiredness of war and his bias towards beauty and peace, no matter what the cost.