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        • A Labor of Love: Our Lebanon Family Home Renovation Project
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
        • Eliya Abu Madi: The Distinguished Poet of al-Rabita al-Qalamiya
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume One: Pre-Islamic to the Abbaasid Age
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume Two: Andalusia to the Modern Age
        • William Blake and Kahlil Gibran: Poets of Prophetic Vision
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: The Man Versus the Legend
        • Essays on Literature and Language
        • Ibn al-Farid's "Khamriyya" ("Ode on Wine")
        • Nizar Qabbani: Women in My Poetry and in My Life
        • Nizar Qabbani: My Story with Poetry - "An Autobiography"
        • Nizar Qabbani: Journal of An Indifferent Woman
        • Ghada al-Samman's Beirut '75: An Autobiographical Interpretation
        • English Translation of Selected Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
        • Khalil Hawi: Letters of Love and Life
        • Immortal Quotes from Ameen al-Rihani’s Masterpiece The Book of Khalid
        • Ameen al-Rihani: Eastern and Western Figures
        • Ameen al-Rihani’s The Register of Repentance: Four Short Stories and a Play
        • Selected Letters of Ameen al-Rihani: Translated with an Introduction and Notes
        • Ameen al-Rihani: You...The Poets
        • Ameen al-Rihani: My Story with May
        • Ameen al-Rihani: The Muleteer and the Priest
      • Books (Arabic) >
        • al-Zajal al-Lubnani wa Zaghloul al-Damour fi Beit Meri: (Lebanese Zajal and Zaghloul al-Damour in Beit Meri)
        • Madkhal ila-l-'alam al-shi 'ri 'inda Khalil Hawi usluban wa madmunan: (An Introduction to the Poetic Universe of Khalil Hawi)
        • al-Nabi bayna 'adu al-Masih wa al-Insan al-Ilah
        • Sahifat "al-Risala" al-Lubnaniya al-Mahjariya: (The "al-Risala" Newspaper and the Lebanese Press in Diaspora)
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran wa William Blake: Sha'ira al-Ru'ya: (Gibran Kahlil Gibran and William Blake: Poets of Prophetic Vision)
        • The Trilogy of Heroism, Redemption, and Triumph: The Press in Diaspora, Khalil Hawi, Zaghloul al-Damour
    • Textbooks & Articles on Teaching & Learning Arabic >
      • marHaba III: A Course in Levantine & Modern Standard Arabic (LMSA) >
        • marHaba III: PART ONE Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART TWO Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART FOUR Audio Files
      • marHaba II: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect - Intermediate Level >
        • A Companion Book to marHaba II: English Translation & Transliteration of All Lessons in marHaba II
      • marHaba: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect >
        • marHaba: Practice Workbooks
      • MABROUK: A Course in Modern Standard Arabic (Elementary & Intermediate Levels) >
        • Study Guide: MABROUK
      • The Story of Sami and Warda
    • Lebanese Nursery Rhymes
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      • Love Surpassed: A Book of Poetry
      • Letters to My Son: An Immigrant's Saga
      • Lebanese Hymns of Love and War
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      • Awdat al-Faris wa Qiyamat al-Madina
      • al-Ghurba wa Mawasim al-Dhalam
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      • Qasa’id Bila Tarikh (Undated Poems) >
        • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Maw’id wa-liqa’
      • anti wal atfaalu fi Beirut: You and the Children in Beirut
      • You and the Children in Beirut
    • Poems (English) >
      • To Mary Ann with Love: A Book of Poetry
      • Birth of a Princess
      • Forty Years of Bliss
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      • You are My Christmas
      • A Poem for Mother's Day
      • To Mary Ann on Her Birthday
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        • A Tribute to Beirut
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      • Arabic Poems in Lebanese Dialect >
        • Hilwit libnan
    • My Poetry (Translated from Arabic to English) >
      • Beirut Speaks
      • The Book of Death, #28
      • Journey of Illusion
      • Letter to a Country With No Frontier
      • A Letter to the Children of Qana
      • My People
      • You, Beirut and the Children
      • Introduction to If You Were Mine
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    • My Translations of Other Poets'/Writers' Works >
      • May Ziyadeh: The Return of the Wave
      • Said Akl: When Lebanon Speaks
      • Ameen Albert Rihani: A Train and No Station
      • Mikhail Naimy: Once Upon A Time
      • Mikhail Naimy: Abu Batta and Other Stories
      • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Mikhail Naimy: Inspired by Christ
      • Mikhail Naimy: Sab‘un (Seventy) An Autobiography
      • Mikhail Naimy: al-Ghirbal (The Sieve): Selections Translated into English with an Introduction
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: A Loaf of Bread (al-Raghif)
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: The Lame Boy and Other Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: Faces and Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: The Red Prince - A Lebanese Tale
      • Maroun Abboud: Tales from the Village
      • al-Rihaniyyat
      • Munajayat Al-Sab‘in
      • Mahmud Darwish’s poem, “Antithesis”
      • ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati’s: The Byzantine Poems of Abu Firas
      • Gibran’s Unpublished Letters to Archbishop Antonious Bashir
    • Personal Reflections >
      • First Impressions of Lebanon in June 2013
      • The Collapse of a Tradition
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Letter # 1
Abu al-Khaseeb: 8–7–1943

My Brother, Poet Khalid al-Shawwaaf…

Herein is a greeting gentler than the summer nights on “the Ra’i Mountain” in the countryside and a longing by the imprisoned bird for the blue mountain which it glances at through its cage.

The cessation of correspondence between us during this long and boring period is extremely painful to me.

I wrote you a letter a long time ago, but no news came back from you. Perhaps the “Postal Administration” has done it again and severed the cord of correspondence between us as it did last summer. At any rate, may God forgive us both for falling prey to the habit of responding only to the letters that we have each received.

I write these pages to you from a grassy meadow in the countryside where I sit in the shadow of a towering palm tree with the breeze blowing through the gigantic trees in front of me as they turn their faces away from the setting sun. On both my right and left sides are two “love scenes”. On the right, not too far from me, stands a huge tree that shelters two lovers on a rainy winter day… You are the poet and your imagination enables you to picture the situation. On my left, what should I say? A gazing female sheep, but who is the shepherdess? You know her. It is “she,” yes, “she” who concealed herself behind the palm trunks away from the gazes of her lover whom she deserted.

Wretched is love… Your compassion sustains me, and your friendship fulfills me. By God, you are the dearest to me, second only to my father and to my mother, both of whom are embodied in the person of my father. Yes, this is the truth. I say it without flattery and without desiring from you the same love or even half of it. Yes, I have known my friend, Assama’il, before I knew you, but he ranks below you. Do I really care too much for the harm that befalls me since you are my brother whom I hope to meet soon? I have passed (the final exams), and I hope that you have done so, too. I will come to Baghdad where I will meet you, and we will live together and wander around and recite poetry, and…and… Oh, God, when will my hand knock at the door of that house “number 1/14” and ask for Khalid and behold him..?

When will that day arrive, the day I peruse the faces of the people at the train station and see that brilliant countenance … the countenance of my brother, the poet, “Khalid?” When..? When..?

Let us move forward after all these preludes to talk about poetry, and if time allows, we can also talk about “love.”

I admire your beautiful poem, “In My Bed,” but I admire you even more. I love this piece very much, and I always recite it especially while in bed. You have comforted my wounds by saying:

“Be content today with what…”
“That of which you complain will become
“Memories that provoke (flood) tears.”

Who among those when afflicted with calamity does not hear someone comforting him, saying: “This, too, shall pass?” However, your line seems as if it does not relate to this saying at all. The sublimity of the line elevates it higher than the popular proverb. This sublimity which is derived from the memories which “provoke (flood) —-tears”…. I congratulate you, my brother, for this poem which refutes the premise of the novices of literature, those who call themselves “Innovators.” You have proven to them that the unified rhyme and the “firmly established” meters, as they call it, is capable of following the movement of innovation.

Innovation is what our great writers like al-Zayyat, al-Rafi’i, and others say, not that which the authors, who use multiple rhyme and meters in one poem, claim. Those authors choose “short and daring”meters such as Mustaf”ilun - Fa’lu.” Certainly, innovation, as our great writers say, is: novelty in the topic, unity in the subject matter, outburst of imagination towards the ideas that the topic of the poem evokes, and the memories and goals that pertain to it. (This is in addition to flawlessness in pronunciation and style…) All this is present in your poem… [Poem omitted]

Time is of the essence, but with you, time is of no consequence…May God help me. My father journeyed to al-Kut, and he entrusted me with the affairs of the house. During the day, I cross the long road to the marketplace, and I return at noon exhausted. I lie down to make up for the time I stay awake at night for fear of thieves (laugh at me), and I do not feel rested until close to sunset. When my father returns, I will write you a long letter with many poems.

Hurry with a response for I am eager to hear about your news…. your health, your success, how you spend your days, and what you have composed.

Take care of yourself for me.

Your sincere brother,
Badr Shakir al-Sayyaab

[From the book, al-Sayyab’s Letters, by Majid al-Samurra’i, (Beirut: Al-Mu’assasa al-‘Arabiya li-al-dirasat wa-al-Nashr, Second Edition, 1994, p. 62) Translated from the original Arabic and with an introduction by George Nicolas El-Hage, Ph.D., Columbia University.]


 

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