Tripoli -
Moftah Al-Ammari (67 years) is a Libyan poet and writer, a member of the Libyan Writers and Writers Association, and has a distinguished position in the history of contemporary poetry. A number of critics consider him a spiritual father of the modern Libyan poem. He wrote nearly twenty books, most of which are concerned with poetry, as well as theatrical texts and critical articles.
Al-Ammari was born in July 1956 in the city of Benghazi, which witnessed the greatest changes in his life when he left the classroom early after the death of his father, and then joined the Libyan army, to go through one of the harshest experiences, when he was forced to go through years with thousands of his generation in the Chad war in 1987. During which he lived through his harsh internal struggles in order to win over the human being and the poet, and he relied on his confident first step represented in the "Resurrection of the Sand" collection.
Al-Ammari’s career, which began in the mid-seventies of the last century, included, in addition to poetry, articles, stories, and novels as well, as well as criticism, theater, television drama, and children’s literature. A break from the cultural scene during the last decade due to his difficult health conditions.
Al-Ammari, who is nicknamed "the lumberjack of the rugged land," preferred living in Tripoli to migrating to the other side of the Mediterranean, as did most of Libya's intellectuals after 2011. He suffers from difficult health conditions, because of which he has been on endless treatment trips inside and outside Libya for a long time, in disguise. From his country's government and officials, as seen by the intellectuals who signed a petition calling on the Libyan government to sponsor Al-Ammari's treatment, as he is one of the most important cultural symbols in the country.
In the poet’s chest is mourning, so you see him consoling himself in poetry, and spreading his pain with each poem, and behind him an army of lines, daring to live no matter what orphanhood, war, loss and disease, until the wisdom of insight was described to him, and in this interview we asked him, and he answered us belatedly for days in which the family of illness occupied him from us. The doctors succeeded, and before narrating the dialogue, we stand on several verses from his most famous prose, "A whole man walks alone."
And if the debate seems old, but it continues about the "prose poem", which Al-Ammari is one of the most important Arab writers, what is your definition of poetry in this sense?
Since the middle of the twentieth century, the first introductions establishing the rise of the "prose poem" in Arab poetic creativity began to be practiced and theorized.
Perhaps the most important reasons inciting this establishment arose from the disintegration of the traditional structures of Arabic poetry.
Of course, it was preceded by a renewal revolution that was summed up in "free poetry", which, by virtue of the acceleration of its transformations, paved the way for the prose poem, before its battle was resolved.
Without elaborating, I will summarize here the history of its establishment and its chronological context by referring to the statements of the Poetry Magazine group, represented by Onsi Al-Hajj's statement, as an introduction to his poetry collection (Lann).
Likewise, the texts of the poet Muhammad Al-Maghout constituted the most prominent station and the most influential and well-established sign.
It is true that both theorizing and creative practice have gone various doctrines;
There is a multiplicity of reference and confusion of concepts, such as the dominance of the Francophone school on the one hand, according to the influence of the French Suzanne Bernard - for example - in her book "The Prose Poem from Baudelaire to the Present Day."
On the other hand, theories were launched that were not devoid of fragility and hyperbole, seeking for their part to root the Arabic prose poem, drawing on the richness of our Arab heritage from the fragmentary writings that were embodied with excellence by the exaggerations of Sufi poetry (Al-Hallaj, Al-Nafari, Al-Bistami, and Sheikh Ibn Arabi) and others.
Office of the Poet Moftah Al-Ammari (communication sites)
However, contrary to such delusions, there are those who count the "Arabic prose poem" as an independent genre, while recognizing at the same time that it is a foreign genre, like other literary and artistic genres, such as the play, the story, the novel and the scenario.
I - personally - are more inclined to the latter description, considering that the prose poem in the experience of written creativity in the language of adversity represents an independent genre, not a branch of the dynasty of the classics of Arabic poetry.
In our current moment, the Arabic prose poem has entered a gray turn, a state of neutrality, coldness, and indifference that has lost its battles, its clamor, and the arrivals of its knights;
As long as its opponents have turned the battle into a heavy-caliber cold war, to face the worst and cruelest forms of neglect and contempt.
Most of the heirs who were bent on writing it now haphazardly broke into it without a poetic memory.
In our current moment, the Arabic prose poem has entered a gray turn, a state of neutrality, coldness, and indifference that has lost its battles, its clamor, and the arrivals of its knights;
As long as its opponents have turned the battle into a heavy-caliber cold war, to face the worst and cruelest forms of neglect and contempt.
Most of the heirs who were bent on writing it now haphazardly broke into it without a poetic memory.
What is the most beautiful thing that poetry offers to the poet?
For me, it is not without its strangeness.
Poetry and I were brought up with unparalleled harshness in the army barracks, for nearly two decades that I spent as an infantryman.
Poetry is my little miracle and my savior from doom.
According to this virtue, my preoccupation with it continued as a form of self-dialogue, which marked my poem with a confessional character that focused on documenting my moments in a dramatic way.
Through poetry, I tried to get closer to myself, learn about my dreams, and nurture them without causing any fuss.
I was, to a large extent, satisfied with such an intimate relationship, fortifying it with the walls of my isolation.
I - as I said - spent my entire young life as a young infantryman, and left school after elementary school, and perhaps from reality outside the army barracks.
Thus, I am not one of the great poets with unprecedented theories and gigantic projects that intend to create a new civilized world with an alternative human culture.
Because my ambition is very simple;
Perhaps it is limited specifically to my use of poetry to restore my personal consideration, to educate myself on friendship with nature, and to practice many parallel hobbies such as painting and music.
Perhaps my poem was within that great ugliness as an adventure to refine the soul, enough to make it worthy of digesting the idea of its humanity.
And to be sure that I had achieved a minimum level of this ambition, I became very passionate about my poem and its details, as a life experience, and a taste that has its sensitivity and intuition.
It is true that I was overwhelmed with boundless joy whenever my writings, poetry and prose, received any recognition of their value and usefulness, artistically and objectively.
Although this issue does not concern me much.
I'm just happy to be furnishing in my own way this kind of knowing conscience.
It suffices that a great deal of verification related to my personal history derives its certainty from the virtues of poetry, as I knew it, raised it, and lived it for half a century.
Outside of any metaphors, poetry will remain - as a personal event - my most merciful, close and affectionate family, and my teacher who helped me erase my illiteracy.
The scientific and cultural background, the imagination and the element of innovation, which is more important in building any artistic product?
There is no doubt that creative creation depends first and foremost on the fertility of the imagination and the element of innovation.
And if its texture necessarily requires surrounding the bag of writing tools that should be used with a degree of know-how and depth of knowledge as a cultural and social reference that has its share of science.
For example, it would be foolish in written creativity to treat language as a kind of raw material, or as a pure form;
While it is the inseparable body and soul.
Experiences are what make a person, so how can a poet and writer go through a harsh experience like the war on neighboring Chad that you found yourself in, how did you overcome that?
Perhaps my bias towards the poet, not the soldier, constituted the safe certainty of winning an ample amount of psychological balance and inner peace.
In lieu of the personal rations that were an obsession for my comrades in the battalion, my knapsack and ketch contained a small volume of Muhammad al-Maghut's complete works up until then (1980).
I also circumvented finding another space for Pasternak's masterpiece, "Dr. Zivako", and a few cassettes (audio tapes) for Fayrouz and the "Pink Floyd" band.
Maghout's poetry was my talisman against that horrific nightmare.
Perhaps my sense of overcoming that suffering was translated by my repeated attempts later to work on recycling the hell of war and the life of the barracks through the machines of imagination and language.
At that time, I greatly outgrew my defeats, crises, and personal complexes.
Whether it was poetry or narration, or what was included in my adventure in playwriting and television drama, which - despite its limitations - constituted Fatah as the adventure most devoted to the space of the soldiers.
Recycling the biography in the form of poems and narratives contributed naturally - as I said - to the poet's victory, not only over the war crime, but also over the military institution in its case and its opposite.
Some of the books of the Libyan poet Muftah al-Ammari (networking sites)
At that time, imagination overcame reality, by documenting an entire life based on violence, drying up dreams, fear, and deprivation of will.
I undertook this act with exceptional awareness, in which the soldier centered as a basic criterion for describing the Libyan personality.
Which derives its focal point from the fact that it embodies an era in the history of the Libyans, whose cities have been transformed into military barracks, and lines of fire.
In Libya of the desert, Libya of long thirst, and Libya of memory of blood, the role of the shepherd, the farmer, the worker, and the teacher will diminish in the face of the dominance of the person of the fighter, whether as a knight of the tribe, or as a soldier affiliated with a regular military institution, or as a militia in a system of chaos.
In Libya of the desert, Libya of long thirst, and Libya of memory of blood, the role of the shepherd, the farmer, the worker, and the teacher will diminish in the face of the dominance of the person of the fighter, whether as a knight of the tribe, or as a soldier affiliated with a regular military institution, or as a militia in a system of chaos.
Libyan history throughout its annals, from Sheshonq the First to Muammar Gaddafi, passing through Septimius Severus, President Murad, Gumeh al-Mahmoudi and Omar al-Mukhtar, and other knights of tyranny, its orphan legacy lies in the equestrian character and its symbols of war leaders and arms bearers.
The experience of illness as well, which you have been going through for years, what did it add to the poet Moftah Al-Ammari at the level of poetic and life experience?
At the beginning of my cancer, I was very confused.
Especially since during the first three years I underwent long periods of hospitalization.
As the cohabitation continued, I came to the need to make a (possibly poetic) compromise to live with my physical ailments in a very understanding and rational way.
As long as it is inevitable to reduce my literary activity within a few hours at home, reading and writing.
This behavior we won after difficult attempts to regulate the cycles of pain and many gifts of merciful patience.
And from the reality of living daily for nearly 16 years, I admit that illness is wisdom.
The longer you are with him, the more compelling you will be to accept him with a measure of faith and contentment, because you will be generously endowed with the insight that will make you more circumspect, kind, and tolerant of yourself and others.
Also, you will gain something from the path, only to discover with the passage of days that there is no loophole to be trusted, whether it is related to the severance of the womb, or what you insist on from the good people, and the group of dervishes has dispersed around you, so that the loyal friend and vinegar startle.
All of their pictures and news faded away, and their voices died out in the blink of an eyelid, so that you would become, as you predicted your destinies 30 years ago, “a whole man walking alone,” where there is no trace of a lover except for the scarcity of “Khalan al-Safa,” the epitome of the womb’s home, the pleasure of the liver, especially the companion of life, and what is feminine. From the blessed offspring: the kind, generous women, one of whom I call “my little mother,” and one sister whose chronic asthma is the only one, and others that my mother did not give birth to.
Thus, condoning and being kind to those who are absent will be more equitable, as long as the poem takes care of sheltering the disease and turning it into a being of the breed of beauty.
Thus I gained some satisfaction;
The presence of my solitude made me very rich that I had no covenant with, and I was liberated without hatred or hatred from the chains and fanfare of others, quietly awaiting my end, satisfied with my good bread, under a roof that, due to chaos, was no longer a safe home as long as there were rogue militias, and there were millions of weapons outside the authority of the state.
You have recently opened up to social media, which has brought you closer to your audience. To what extent has the reader influenced Miftah Al-Ammari's poetic experience?
As much as I theoretically understand the need to invest this virtual space in creating a state of interaction and the most feasible kinship to develop and develop levels of reception, and nurture that new sensitivity to deal with the read, digest it and interpret it, and my unlimited sympathy with simplifying the spread of poetry and its circulation among the largest possible number of readers, but I - with all Sorry - I am still on the practical level confused with some suspicion and fear in adapting such a machine to serve the interaction with my experience in writing poetry and prose.
Perhaps, according to my point of view, the social media - in its social and cultural space - has been involved or colluded with the perpetuation of the phenomenon of liquidity at the levels of creation and reception to an extreme degree that makes it difficult to yearn to conclude a social contract that guarantees the organization of an ethical relationship that respects the life and privacy of writing, by providing a more sober and confident climate in Information circulation.
Likewise, among the most prominent disadvantages of communication sites is that they perpetuate manifestations of populism and commons, and the personalization of interaction (mostly) according to the appeal of flattery rather than the quality of the text, as well as the reproduction and repetition of forms, and the spread of hypocrisy and fluidity, especially since most of the comments - as an expression of interaction with the reader - In large part, it indicates the extent to which reading levels are limited.
As I noticed, according to the prevailing and established traditions in this virtual space, it is as if the poet is expected to have skills other than creative writing, whose manifestations are evident in the public relations industry, so that he must strengthen personal bonds as a priority that precedes the presence of his creative achievement.
As if we have transferred many of our behavioral lesions from living reality to virtual.
Thus, I will admit without equivocation that my introverted nature had a negative impact on opening up to communication platforms in a more comfortable way, due to my neglect to use the minimum vocabulary of “etiquette” in luring others to follow me.
In view of this failure that I suffered, my relationship with this space remained very limited, i.e. purely a random and semi-seasonal view.
In the same context, I also point out that I have become accustomed to not publishing my texts until after a period of time that is usually no less than 6 months, if not much longer.
There are fundamental reasons for this, including that poetry has completely lost its textile relationship with its society.
As a loyal reader of what I write, I had to retain ownership of my texts for a while, before they became commons in the form of distorted reproductions.
The issue of publishing here seems to cause resentment at the moment when the poet intends to offer thanks and praise with a lot of flirtation to those who volunteer or take the initiative to publish his texts or write about and about them.
This kind of craving for fragile interaction represented by meager comments and clicking like icons reflects the unfortunate extent to which the levels of cynicism have reached eccentric vanity, making the case seem "extremely corrupt and pompous".
The poetic experience of your generation was characterized by the adventure of experimentation and interruptions, and was described as solitary and isolated poetic experiences.
Did these features affect the inevitability of Libyan poetic experiences with common goals?
Perhaps the description of diaspora will shorten the painful part in terms of diagnosing the launch of the prose poem in Libya, in the early eighties of the twentieth century, as an individual activity whose achievement was embodied by a few poets, even if they seem familiar, but the path of each of them will differ shortly with regard to the importance of personal privacy, the degree of perseverance, and the levels of Difference, wild adventure, and the spirit of the text.
It is true that there is an intersection, perhaps, in the visions and the partnership of passion for reading the same books that gave them, for a limited time, a similar feature.
However, the next decade (the nineties) in their journey will prove that there is a huge difference in terms of devotion to poetry, between the soldier, the school teacher, and the high school student.
I refer here to the inauguration of the prose poem in Libya, a practice and theorizing through the group (Al-Bayda) represented by the trio: (Miftah Al-Ammari, Faraj Al-Asha, and Faraj Al-Arabi).
However, returning to the theme of diaspora, there is no trace that can be evidenced by the existence of a generation that reflects a complete poetic life that passes through the struggle of currents, concepts, ideologies, and anxious questions.
The whole issue was formed here as a mere mutation outside its historical cycle and knowledge accumulation.
Despite this, fairness historically necessitates the necessity of pointing out with certainty: that the most prominent sign as a turning point in the process of the poetic experience in Libya began with the poem of the eighties, as the discreet adventure through which we gained some form, crystallization and refinement to write a prose poem of particularity and clarity, which came as an outcome of a Libyan experience pure in its suffering, labor, and real struggle with life;
Her legacy is summed up in a poetic achievement that will be considered an exception in the course of the Libyan experience.
Some of the books of the Libyan poet Muftah al-Ammari (networking sites)
For further clarification regarding the fragmentation that the poets of the eighties were accustomed to of their rarity, it is necessary to emphasize here the unprecedented ferocity of the repression machine that had its unfair effect, especially during the seventh decade. Intellectuals and activists, including the writers of the Cultural Week newspaper.
Therefore, it is not fair to use the term “generation” to apply to what is left, i.e. a few people with the number of fingers on one hand, who do not form a clique or bloc or even just a group or a small group that can enjoy a minimum level of partnership in homogeneous sensitivity and specific goals. Whether objective or technical.
Going back to my personal history as a poet, I justify part of my writing involvement as a reaction to the absence of justice;
When I found myself compelled to spend nearly 18 years in the army without a minimum level of respect for my humanity and will, the moment I was forced more than once into obscure war fronts, as a forced soldier, inferior to a mercenary;
My battalion was almost completely annihilated, and only a few were left who were fortunate enough to live with disabilities and chronic mental illnesses.
At that time, everything was happening with a suspicious, chaotic and reckless military will, governed by the whims and whims of the person of the brother leader.
And according to the vicissitudes of my first life as a soldier in the army that followed my period of orphanhood, I stored many images of oppression and injustice.
Thus, I found in poetic writing, as well as the obsession with reading, a moral supporter that mitigated the ferocity of an unjust life.
The paradox here: How can you, as a poet, impose your individuality in a society that vigorously crushes any attempt to break away from the herd?
Neither the collective mentality (of the tribal thinking pattern), nor the ideological orientation laden with false socialist slogans for a dysfunctional totalitarian regime, nor the arrogance of the military traditions that turned cities into large barracks and security squares, will allow you this kind of relaxation.
A country without a constitution and laws that protect freedoms and guarantee the individual his civil rights, without a press and legislation to protect public opinion, where suspected loyalists are hanged in the squares, books and music instruments are burned in public squares, theaters and theaters are closed, not to mention the policies of ignorance, cultural poverty and that historical rivalry against writers and intellectuals, especially the revivalist fusha poets;
All these and other obstacles combined strongly to limit the poet's ambition, and this is what happened.
From the works of the Libyan poet Muftah al-Ammari (communication sites)
New poetic experiences, specifically after 2011, how do you see them through the eyes of the poet?
Are there experiences worthy of follow-up and criticism in Libya?
By resorting to the poetic achievement of some of the voices that emerged in the Libyan poetic scene, starting in 2011, and through the texts that I had access to, whether through social media platforms or the manuscripts and collections of poetry that reached me, I stopped with much astonishment at the experiences of great fertility and diversity. And richness, in terms of reducing the image by capturing and tracking the context of the visual snapshot and summarizing its scene with a high degree of intensity, insinuation and suggestion, as indicated by the poems of the poet Hana Qabaj when she monitors the ugliness of war from the most strange angle: “Heads roll out of sketchbooks like orange grains!”
There is also room for poetic satire, in the form of black comedy.
As a counter writing, as is the case with the poet Juma al-Muwaffaq, who writes in a very austere language, "I add my voice to the miserable, and I shout that we are in the last ditch and behind us are towers of skulls."
Likewise, the sedition of surreal fragmentation will seduce us with its high amazement, and the spontaneity of the confessional repercussions of the poet Siraj al-Din al-Warfalli, who fights war in his own way with a sarcastic gesture: "I fear that I will forget my death in this war."
Our reading of his texts, whose ambition is celebrated, remains incomplete and unfair, due to our lack of his poetic works.
Likewise, the poems of the poet Muftah al-Alwani will lure us with the smoothness of their poetic sentence, by taking care of the typesetting of their shots in the form of a scene, where "there is poetry in everything; even in the touch of a still hot corpse."
Among the striking voices, we also refer to the poem of the poet Safia Al-Ayesh as a young experience that is most distinguished in terms of the ability to intensify meaning and poetic shock.
In one of her poems she says, "The morning begins with my feet, which find it difficult to dance."
While another sedition will take us the moment when a poet masters the talent of Muhammad Abdullah in transforming his meditations into a skillful type of fragmentary poetry with an abundance of amazement, "because of the many things that have gone out inside me, I am afraid that your origin will be dark."
Other voices of great importance in shaping the poetic profile of the post-2011 generation were also mentioned, such as Ali Houria, Fayrouz Al-Awkali, Akram Al-Yaseer, Nourhan Abdel-Haq, Hamza Al-Falah, and Najah Al-Mabrouk.
I attribute any shortcoming here in my unfair briefing on new experiences in Libyan poetry to my interruption of communication and the continuous and regular presence of the movement of poetic creativity in Libya over a decade and a half for health reasons, so I beg your pardon.
Finally, I will suffice with this amount, abandoning the issue of "merit" - in the second part of the question - to the skilled runners in public relations, until the time comes for the most tolerant and equitable recognition of poetry and entity.