The Orange as an Orange

On Everyday Materials as a Basis for the New Arabic Lyric

الملخص

This article describes an important axis of development in the poetics of the Arabic prose poem after the crisis of 1967. While the novel, as Sabry Hafez has argued, turned away from classical realism toward poetic density and ironic fragmentation, prominent prose poets turned in the opposite direction of lyrical realism and poetics of the quotidian. This turn is analyzed with respect to the hegemony of the novel, the demise of the prophet-poet, and the task of representing marginalized voices of everyday civilians. I focus on Syrian poetry of the everyday to demonstrate the forms in which the role of the anonymous citizen poet is fleshed out. This figure is put off by national symbols and engages in a struggle to rescue humble bits of beauty from the crushing routine of life under the Baath Party. The circulation of Palestinian literature in Syria is taken as a test case for the battle over meaning between the state and agents “from below”: against the misuse of anthologies of Palestinian poetry co-opted by the state, the poetry of the everyday constitutes itself in concretely imagined solidarity with Palestinians. I identify a similar dynamic occurring within Palestinian poetry, which distances itself from dominant rhetorical molds to refine a prosaic tone in relation to the Palestinian predicament. As the modern Arabic poem opens itself to non-poetic discourses, poetry scholars are called to lessen their formalistic purism in studying poetic language. This article is an invitation to follow a more interdisciplinary method of studying Arabic poetry.