Yahya Al Naabi (The Gold Coast/Australia): The modern Poets of Oman

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Prose poems, which are known as modern poems or free verse in Arab countries, began to appear in the middle of the last century. The modern poem experience is very different from the classic experience of Arab poetry. Classical poetry is based on the reflection of realistic imagery while modern poetry is based on the imagined and is characterised by brevity. Modern poetry is considered to have come about as a result of global poetry translations which have the same approach in terms of writing and similarity of style. Some critics disagree with the identification of modern poetry, instead arguing that it is a development of classical poetry. Other critics note that it does not relate to the ancient Arab heritage or to the traditional Arabic poetry forms. The poet Adonis is considered one of the pioneers of the prose poem, and he sees prose poems not necessarily as distinct from the classic poem but thinks that each era has a different experience of poetry, as they do with lifestyle.

Until the 1970s, classic poetry was very well known in the community in Oman. There are several reasons for this, such as the lack of modern education and public libraries and because culturally Oman was not open to the world. However, after that date education became available to people in all regions schools in Oman, moreover, the government offer to Omani students a lot of college scholarships to the whole of the world. In other words, it became much easier to look at global cultures, including their prose poetry. This paper will review some of the Omani poets who have contributed to spreading the culture of prose poems in addition to models of their poems.

The beginning of the prose poem (The first generation)

Prose poetry first appeared in Oman in the work of three poets who had studied abroad. The three poets are Saif Al-Rahbi, Samaa’ Issa and Zahir Al-Ghafri. Saif Al-Rahbi and Samaa’ Issa studied in Egypt while Zahir Al-Ghafri studied in Iraq. Due to receiving their education abroad, these poets had the best opportunity to read a great deal about literature in general and modern poetry specifically. Moreover, Cairo and Baghdad are big cities and considered as centres of Arabic civilization, both cities have many public libraries. Thus, these poets are considered the founders of the prose poem in Oman.

Saif Al-Rahbi

Omani poet Saif al Rahbi was born in (Sumaail), Sultanate of Oman in1956. He studied in Cairo and lived in many Arab and European countries. He worked in the Arab press and cultural fields and his literary works have been translated into many languages. In 2004, he returned to Oman and founded a magazine called Nizwa, which is a cultural, intellectual and literary magazine where he works as editor in chief.

Saif Al-Rahbi is often influenced by his surrounding environment, and he transforms the scenes he sees into poetry. The following poem describes his memory of his homeland when he was an immigrant.

They have deeply gone toward themselves

Went in desolation

Days followed by days

Homes decays in beau eyes

And the mountains den anniversary.

In the next part of the poem, the poet describes the cruelty of loneliness, alienation and the continuous movement from one place to another, from one country to another, he has experienced since his childhood, so that he lacks warmth, tranquility and stability:

No mother was breastfeeding me

No country sheltering me

I woke up and found the trains

Looting my age by distance’s shame.

The poet remembers his harsh childhood in his village, where the desert felt similar to demons because of the high temperature, which causes mirages to appear in the desert as if demons are walking. Therefore, the cruelty of nature in Oman at that time transformed his childhood into visions of rocky solid trees, because they challenge the cruelty by walking barefoot, as the following poem says.

In a harsh desert

That is flowing with the sun

Dunes and demons

Made as rocky trees.  

Instability and confusion are evident in the poet’s work; perhaps because of a life of permanent migration, always moving from one place to another, which he calls the life of alienation. His poems are saturated with a sense of tragedy and guilt, as in the following poem.

Slain was should

Heals his wound

Before death

To avoid entering the afterlife is bleeding.

In the previous poem, we find that the poet has deepened the sense of fragility, loss and disappointment. Even in the case of death, he reprimands the consciences of the slain for not healing his wounds before his death. This shows the poet’s cruel feelings for himself.

The mountain exists clearly and dramatically in the work of Saif Al-Rahbi. It is also interestingly present in the sense of many of the poet poems. He says:

The strong mountain is staring at me

By telescope

As it is asking me

“Are you still here?

Your stay is becoming long”.

The poet used to travel constantly; therefore, the conversation between him and the mountain is to remind himself to travel. The poetic image of the interrogation from a mountain means that his relationships are not only linked with humans but that he also sometimes finds that inanimate objects are better able to be absorbed. On the other hand, he also makes clear the deep relationship between him and the mountain, when the mountain says:

I know you write about me

You are born under my dark shadows.

Also he says:

In the morning, when I wake up

The world wakes up in my head

With exotic organisms

With screams which smash bones

I leave my room that is filled with the dead.

 

I enter the cafe

Stare carefully into a cup of coffee

That looks like a snake relaxing in a summer afternoon

Thinking that this is the last cup in this city.

 

The day at the beginning

I know that I face a war and kisses

I will discover the flavour after centuries.

Apparently discussing things that are seemingly ordinary and simple, he tells an everyday story of life in all its tedium and boredom. However, the poem is full of poetry, he tried to illustrate how his life sometimes is boring because of limited choices where he live. He is portraying the coffee as similar to a snake. Perhaps because of the routine of his life, he has lost the ability to taste things and becomes tired of it all. There are other examples, such as organisms screaming in the morning and the room that resembles a dead cave.

Samaa’ Issa

Samaa’ Issa was born in Muscat in Oman in 1954. He studied at the primary school in Oman then completed his studies in Bahrain and Kuwait, graduating in 1974. He then travelled to Cairo. Critics considered him a poet of ego-exiled and inspired by tragedy and the self-painful, as his poems feature pain and nostalgia. His writing style is closer to the mystic character.

This part of Samaa’s poem describes human brutality, probably because of the amount of evil in the world, and how people are suffering from war, destruction and poverty, especially in developing and poor countries. It also depicts the smell of death that is carried in people’s coats; in the other words, a “free death” due to violence and a lack of security.

Ruin lives in a fading human depth

The wind blows from the east bearing a black dust

Such a day coats

Also carry the stench of death.

Samaa’ frequently uses nothingness and death in his poems, which are dominated on by tales of human destruction. The next part describes how screaming widows are a habit in Omani society, indicating how a wife is influenced by the death of her husband.

I warn about times of considerable heat

And screaming widows

How the dead people are dispersion.

The following section reveals pessimism even in a joyful moment. The poet depicts a waterfall as flowing blood rather than water. The poet is providing proof of the devastating wars and disasters humans have experienced.

Was not cheerful whether anonymous harbinger

It threatens tragically

Blood explodes like a waterfall

It is a time ruined.

 Samaa’ Isa’s poems feature three themes: death, alienation and love. He is also interested in Oman’s folklore and he wrote a poem called “Omani’s songs Nowruz”. Nowruz is an old traditional celebration in Oman that happens every year in the spring at the same time as the harvest. It is also related to the Persian new year. In this poem the poet is shown the importance of the tree and describes how it is caring and compassionate like a mother. He asks for his grave to be shaded from the inflamed sun. He says:

Oh tree

My mother

Shade my grave from

The sun’s harshness.

As I wrote above, the poet is interested of the mystic themes and features in many of his poems many things related to beings, objects and nature. Therefore, the reader finds words’ echo comes out of the sky, then hesitates in the mountains, caves and forests. As he says:

As you leave alone

In the night

You will knock my door

As a stranger

The water washed away like a dead child.

When you came alone and cried?

Was quietly screaming sneak out

From the field to the grave

Everything was close to death.

Zahir Al-Ghafri

Zaher Al-Ghaferi was born in Oman in 1956. He lived in many Arab and foreign countries, including Iraq, Morocco, the United States and Sweden. Recently, he returned to Oman to live after more than forty years away. The poet highlights the modern poetic experience in Oman. His poetry is full of details about travelling and alienation. However, his voice is digging to himself a niche in the poetry experience, not just in Oman but also in the Arab world. Moreover, many of his poems have been translated into foreign languages.

Human nature means that people always experience intimate communication with places. Despite his travelling and distance from Oman, Zahir Ghafri always carried with him the place where was born, which is Oman, but an Oman that remained in his memory. He clings to the topography of Oman, where he says:

 

The mountains are far from me

This pain horoscope from the waves

Without salinity.

No more mistakes

If witches are having fun above the clouds.

 

The homes are free of people

I see every skinny face

Such as valley stones

Which are submerged by the moonlight.

The old memory of the Omani people is full of magic and sorcery. The majority of the popular stories talk about magic and dead people who come back to life. Although Zaher Al-Ghaferi was in the West when he wrote the above poem, a nostalgia for the past dominates his writing, as can be seen in the references to magic, witches, mountains and poor people with skinny and pale faces.

The poetry is the poet’s guide in the search for the answer to the mystery of existence. The vocabulary of the poem reveals the poet’s truth of life. In the following poem, the poet wants to tell the people that he chose poetry to be his guide in life as well as the light source who sees through it the world. He says:

You are someone else now

Because the word is your guide in the wilderness

Where the fall of light

In front of doors that do not open

The doors the poet refers to as not open are the political and religious repression which is against knowledge and science and rebelling against the tradition and moving into the world of light.

To look at you

Such as seeing an angel.

Despite of his society rejected to his thoughts. Therefore, Zaher Al-Ghaferi chose a life of alienation and displacement in the capitals of the world, escaping from the cage that imprisoned him in those two taboos of tradition and religion. Freedom caused him a lot of pain, but he always resorts to internal peace, which he views as an angel who sees to him with compassion and tenderness.

In the other side, the poet has many romantic poems about the love and beauty. He always considered himself an eternal beau of the life.

The woman didn’t say anything

Standing on the balcony

Looking carefully down

When I go up to her.

While travelling, the poet gained a new poetic language, for example referring to a balcony, which is not in Oman’s architecture style. Although Oman is a tropical countries, the reason for the lack of balconies is because the Omani community considers that the balcony reveals the privacy of the home, especially for women, as it is considered shameful to see a women sitting outside.

Oh God, do not break the stair.

The poet depicts his eagerness and longing to meet his love who is waiting on the balcony, so he begs his God that the stairs are not broken before he arrives.

Saeeda Khater

Saeeda Khater was born in Sur in the east of Oman in 1956. She has presided over a number of cultural centres in Oman and has written many poetry books as well as publishing in local and Arab newspapers and magazines. Often, her poems characterised romance as well as national anthems. In her generation, Saeeda broke society’s taboo that women should stay at home and are not entitled to be involved in any cooperation or writing.

She says:

Longing for you who arrived before me

The fire of love burns me

Cut off my body parts

And

I do not know who I’m

You are my nostalgia

Killing me

You are my whine

It pains me.

The amount of her love is very clear in the poem, which uses bold vocabulary to express emotion. In Omani society, revealing one’s passion is considered taboo. The poet was able to rebel against the community’s restrictive ideas.

The poet also has poems that criticise the political situation in Arab countries, such as corruption. She says:

On this earth

The Glory to the dunces

Burden your stupidity in your head.

In the previous poem, the poet launched a scream of despair because of chaos and a lack of responsibility. She calls out the reader for being in line with the prevailing situation, in addition, to be filled with stupid in order to live there. She means that anyone trying to rectify the situation is renounced.

Lack of heart’s feeling

Use desires in order to fill pockets.

She also claims that any person in her society is without conscience and participating in corruption if they want to have wealth and success without effort.

In the following section, I will review some of the Omani poets who are called the second generation of Omani modern poetry, with the poets who are discussed above being considered the first generation.

The second generation

The second generation studied in Omani schools and then enrolled at universities in different Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Morocco. However, some of them had a chance to study in the United States of America and Europe. By the 1980s, Oman had become more open to the world and, following a change in the political system, developed good relationships with many other countries. Therefore, the students have more chances to get higher education scholarships.

Mohamed Al Harthi

Mohamed Al Harthi was born in east region of Oman in 1962. He graduated from Qatar University with a degree in marine sciences. He has written many poetry books and one novel. He has also published in several local and Arab magazines and newspapers. He lives between Oman and East Asia, travelling frequently in order to write and be creative.

To the window

Precedes the morning

With bitter coffee and golden badminton

Mozart injured his senses

The poem is a portrait of what the poet is doing every morning. He wakes up before sunrise and then takes his coffee while listening to Mozart to prepare himself for writing. The poet thus connects two worlds: the inner world, as he described the former; and the outside world, that is when he peers out of the window as if to prepare himself to imagine. As he says:

In the hall spring

Drawing water in the water.

He says in another poem:

My life is a poem I wished I would write.

But I could not be revived

Also talking at the same time.

The language used is fraught with pain and frustration between what the poet feels and how life is experienced in reality, as he feels something and lives opposite. This is due to external factors; the most important being the lack of freedom of expression. Moreover, sometimes there are obstacles that prevent the poet from freely living his life, like in Oman, where faces many of taboos in his community. Therefore, he could not write or live his poem (life) yet.

This method changes when he flies in a plane, where he says:

You are now above a place

You are now between different date ranges

You are

Beyond the pale

Above the soldiers

And,

Above the ancestors, who are absent in the shrines.

While the poet is in the plane, he find the freedom to express himself because he is free from all restrictions such as of place, soldiers or police and a time. He is like a bird out of its cage. Through the poem, the poet depicts joy, unlike his life before the travel.

The poet always alters his acoustic tones when representing the situation he lives. The poem is a creative production generated under certain stimuli such as sadness, joy, love and loneliness. Therefore, each poem is independent from the other poems. It represents a sense of how the poet lived at a certain moment. It is a different personal emotional experience. The following poem is an example of a poetic representation of the poet when he felt tired:

While we feeling tired

Or (if it allows us to do)

Throw away our body of window patience

An orphan sacrificed, in a sleep well.

Although, the poet described his situation of fatigue, that is a physical condition. However, there is a sentence in two quotes indicate that he lost the freedom (“If It allows us to do”). The poet portrays sleep as a sacrifice or escape, not only because of fatigue but also from reality.

Abdullah Al ryami

Abdullah Al ryami was born in the green mountain in the interior region of Oman in 1965. He studied an undergraduate degree in Morocco and lived there for many years. In the mid-1990s, he returned to Oman and worked in human rights. He stayed in Oman for a few years, and then he flew to Cairo where he lived for nearly seven years. He is currently living in Morocco. He has published a few poetry books and his poetry experience is ful of painful realism. He says:

I’m hiding in the wine

To prevent even the days

Knowing where I’m I.

 

I’m hiding in the marijuana

Not even anyone

Knows my pain.

It shows that the poet is isolated from people. He also seems unable to cope with the community, which is not surprising as the poets and intellectuals who have studied abroad live a dual life, between the national community life in Oman and the life that is experienced abroad. As well as this, the Omani community has ostracised intellectuals because of their ideas, accusing them of being different to the society’s customs and traditions. Therefore, the pain mentioned in the poem is pain of being alienated from the motherland. He completed the poem with the following passage:

The eraser

The sharpener

Who’s thinking are student tools!

Loses the truth knowledge of the life.

What people consider self-evident, the poet has different perspective. Erasers and sharpeners are not a student’s tool but can be used for other purposes.

While you rise in a breathless maze

Infused with silence

Dropped with firmness

Like an anchor preceding its balloon

Of last lust

On land.

 

While the expelled birds

From your forest shoulders

Take off their wings of my head

Such as a sculptor’s inveigled waist

In order to

Eternally dance.        

The poet depicts sexual arousal when the female partner groans due to the two bodies joining. The situation makes the poet feel as if he were flying, before falling with lust. The birds, which are mentioned in the poem, are the poet’s reference to expatriation and movement, where he does not settle in one place.

So, from all of lands that belong to him, he cultivates a perfume which he loves to give to his sweetheart.

This land, cultivated by your perfume

Does not smell anymore, only your atheism.

The suggestion exercised by the poet here is not only sexual. The poet often uses metaphorical expressions; women in his poems often represent an escape from the direct meanings of language. For example, in this poem woman represents the freedom that is missing in Arab countries but about whose lack no one can directly refer, fearing that their statement will be mistaken interpreted by the authorities as a rebellion. This is especially relevant as freedom of expression is missing in Arab countries; therefore, metaphorical language is the most appropriate way to express one’s feelings. Thus, in this poem the woman becomes the freedom that the poet wants.

Nassir Al-Alawi

Nassir Al-Alawi was born in Sur in the eastern region of Oman in 1959. His childhood was saturated by sea dreams, because he lived close to the coast, which stretched to the horizon. He travelled with gulls and the fish in the deep of the ocean. His poetry demonstrates how his spirit travelled each moment, even though his wings became like a sieve, fatigued by nostalgia and the uncertainty of life. In his memory, marine life crashes into harsh rocks and smashes the waves in the battle for existence.

He writes:

In the evening

The sea hidden by the darkness

And,

Will disappear our dreams’ succession.

The waves as a series

Around the foots

Encircles our feet to keep us.

The dreams disappear into the sea in the darkness, but the poet found that the sea is a source of ecstasy. Throughout history, Omani people have looked to the sea for their livelihood and their hope. Moreover, many poets write romantic poems about the sea. Therefore, the poet sees that even if dreams disappear as the sea disappears in the darkness, it will return loaded with happiness. The sea inspires optimism in the poet.

Oman has a long coast of about 1700 kilometres. Therefore, the coast is interesting for nearby residents to travel along and they consider it a tourist attraction. In the past, their seaside location means they have had more opportunity than Omanis who live inland to integrate with other cultures, who come for trade or to invade. There are many poems about the sea, both romantic and tragic. For example, the poet says:

The sea and the woman

Grass becomes cold under the sun

The sea and the sun

The seagull born now into their clarity

The iron spread between us

The woman was fragmented

Sunrays

Following us, such a rainbow.

In the poem above, the poet describes the presence of women and the sea on a sunny day as a sign of romance. He uses words of love by joining the sea, woman and the sun with the birth of a seagull. However, the iron included in the scene are the ships and boats in the marina or the beach, which the poet sees because it causes of the sunlight to split into the parts of ships and mirrors. So, the woman too becomes fragmented, which suggests that nature has mixed with urbanisation and is no longer pure and free from industries, which is how the poet wishes that the life was. Therefore, when he says: “The iron spread between us,” these are words of sorrow.

The poetry written by Al-Alawi is characterised by the coloring of passions, and is sometimes loaded with loss. He uses vocabulary in order to relieve his pain. As he says:

In this night, I heard

Crystal memory, was said

Directed towards my shadow

And,

My praying mat passion

I know

Your desires far of you

Your wing is sieve

Your prayers choker is not completed.

He writes of a memory from long ago and the poet listens to his memory of old desires that failed. In the Arabic language “sieve” means to not get anything. For instance, you could not collect or carrying water with a sieve, so it refers to loss.

Saleh Al-Amri

Saleh Al-Amri was born in a coastal village called Shinas in the north of Oman in the 1960s. After he finished high school in Oman, he went on to complete his undergraduate studies in Cairo, Egypt. It was there that he learned how to write about what he thinks and feels. These were the first steps for becoming a poet. Al-Amri is always using complex vocabulary, so his poetry is often difficult for the reader to interpret. However, people who read his poetry often can better understand it and conclude by connecting with its poetic meanings.

Who taught me?

A boasting to confront the arrogant villains

Who are mutilated by the sun plow.

 

 

Who forces me to stay here?

As a naked fragment

Or

As a sleepy nebula.

It is the lightning which, chuckling, is saturated.

In the poem above, the poet wonders about the secret behind his ability to confront the arrogant and tyrannical. As a result, he provides inspiration of the strength through which poet can face the baddies. The expression is metaphorical, as the truth is that they are maimed because of their cruelty and arrogance towards people. The poet means that the baddies are the politicians and clerics who destroyed humanity.

The poet also wonders, who forces him to stay in this life which is filled with evil and chaos? He considers that the presence when it disarray murderous for humans. Therefore, he believes that laughing is the best way to confront the cosmic nebula, especially for a person who is naked and unarmed such as the poet.

Tell me

Any sadness and prey I am?

Any lost and assignation I am?

Eating himself in a delicious appetite.

 

Tell me

Why I’m in the pride reckless

I becomes two.

The poet describes the different situations of grief, loss and fear he has experienced, being stalked by something in this life or imagining that he is lost in the desert. The poet’s reflection expresses an extent amount of evil that exists.

Despite the pride he feels in himself, he also feels that he must assume two characters, and this represents a schizophrenic person. In Eastern communities, the individual often does not live to be the person who they wants to be because they are restricted by society, religion and policy. So he/she assumes a personality that has more than one form, which leads people to be more ambiguous. This is a result of life in Eastern communities, which rely on collective lives where individuals follow the community, unlike Western life where there is individuality and people are free to make decisions by themselves.

Symbols always have significant roles in Saleh Al-Amri’s poems. This may be because generally the use of symbols is one of the fundamentals of the prose poem. Therefore, poets seek to use symbols not only for the technical mechanism of poetry but also to avoid direct meaning. Any poet wants to send a message or to express what he feels; however, they are many taboos that prevent him/her from directly writing about their feelings, so they use symbols instead. As we see in the following poem:

I left obsolete sand

And stabbed darkness by morning light

Oh, general of pigeon

Who enchanted

A frog or water.

The symbols in the above poem can be interpreted in many ways. The reader may not be able to understand all of them, so each reader has his/her own interpretation of the sentences and sections, and this may result in more ambiguity. The poet speaks in the past tense. The theme of the poem’s story relies on the poet’s movement from the past to the present, by used obsolete sand, with light to remove darkness and enchanted Generally.

Talib Al Maamari

Talib Al Maamari was born in north of Oman in a city called Saham. He went to university in Morocco and graduated with a degree in journalism. He is currently an editing director at Nizwa cultural magazine. He has written many poetry books.

We are coming to

A new day as rusty currency

We are coming to

Such a life like

Torn between a falls

Head and body.

The poem expresses frustration and discontent and the vocabulary used contains many words with cruel meanings. People should start their day with optimism and activity, while the poet seems does not have any desire to begin his day, as he already knows that his day will be bleak and lack delight. He writes:

The poem does not come

As I want or you want

Because of life’s routine

The books align in me language and myths.

The poet reveals that the poem does not belong him; rather, it is a reflection of his life. Moreover, it confirms what he wrote about previously: the sadness and frustration that occurs as a result of the daily reality of life as a poet. The poet also finds a way to disclose of painful situations by using an alternative vocabulary and metaphors, as he could not speak of this in a direct way.

As he writes:

 

The poem

It is my life’s poem which writes

Restricted with

Scrupulosity dreams.

 Abdullah Habib

Abdullah Habib was born in a small village in northern Oman in the 1960s. He studied cinema and philosophy in the USA, graduating in 1992, then the completed postgraduate studies in the USA in 2005. He does research in cinema studies in addition to writing poetry, therefore he blends poetry with cinema and often his poems’ forms are similar to cinematic scenes.

Our bones pour on the wind and rain

The sky is breaking on the grass

The lightning flows in our slobber

And, the glass door

Smashed.

The influence of movie scenes appears clearly in the above poem. The poem sentences show that the poet is happy because of the rain. Therefore, his happiness leads him to image that the bones can flow into the rain and wind as well as lightning in his slobber.

He also says:

Sprawled naked on bed

Half-covered by a white sheet.

The beginning

In the lap of his mother

Or, on

Chaos’ chest.

The previous poem is divided into three periods. The first phase constitutes the current moment: “woman in bed.” The second phase constitutes the past, which is “when he was young in the lap of his mother.” The third phase is the complex, which is the first stage of human formation and here he means the woman. The poem is linked to a relationship with a woman, either for sex or maternity. Moreover, the poet suggests that maybe there is a connection even in the configuration of the stage of a woman’s body. As a result, the poem is associated with a woman’s relationship to philosophy.

What kind of lonely evening this?

Only, anguish

Taoob’s* boat that does not approach, despite drowning

Also, Bergman’s** boat in Through a Glass Darkly.

I’m lonely, swallowed the darkness

What kind of orphan night he lives?

No one else

Not you, I’m

Not me, you

No one.      

 

* Taoob: A person known by the poet who died a long time ago.

** Bergman: Swedish filmmaker Ernst Ingmar Bergman.

The poet is looking for himself in the above poem; he felt lonely that evening, and also he lives a bitterly lonely life. The general feeling that coats the poem is depression, which leads the poet to feeling separated from himself, and he starts to chat with himself, like an orphan. The poet mentioned two people he knows who are dead. Taoob is a fisherman was from the poet’s village, while Bergman is a Swedish filmmaker. The poem links these people to the story of a sunk boat, referencing Taoob’s boat that sunk one evening in reality, and the boat that sinks in Bergman’s movie called Through a Glass Darkly. Thus, the tragic scene reflects the poet’s sorrow that night.

The Third Generation

The third generation of poets were born in the 1970s. Most of them graduated from Omani universities and colleges, as by that time there were many of universities in Oman, both government and private. This generation has the most experience of the social and political situation in Oman, because of the transformation in these conditions they witnessed. They have always been in a struggle towards development and change, while the community still clings to tradition.

Abdullah Al Balushi

Abdullah Al Balushi was born in Quriyat, which is one of Muscat’s governorate cities. His life is linking to the isolation however was not apparent abundance in cultural events. His writing approach has a mystical and spiritual nature. Moreover, his poetry language is saturated in simple details of creatures with a complex analysis.

A majestic bird, soar in the space

Dragging behind him, sacrificial and granting

Safeguard by the night  

You are a desert chorale.

A poetic spirit that swims in the poet’s imagination encouraged him to delve deeper into the isolation that surrounds him. His first poetry book was called The Isthmus of Isolation. Therefore, the poet is in a perpetual apostrophizing to God, the sky, a rose, a bird, et cetera. The bird that is mentioned in the above poem might be an eagle, because the poet describes it as majestic, which is evidence of a high spiritual value. Additionally, granting also often appear in churches and mosques in response to making sacrifices to God.

I saw, such as a sleeper seeing

Lonely mothers

As a loop form, like a broken moon beam

Exclaim to who are going away

They are souls wandering in perpetual absence.

The poet’s relationship with souls represents a dialogue where he does not talk about reality but a figment of his imagination or a dream. He imagines the mothers of people who died so they exclaim to the souls of their loved ones in a loop, like a moonbeam illuminates a perpetual absence, it indicates a feeling of sorrow feeling, which is Sufis’ usual way of writing poetry, as well as using vocabulary related to the metaphysical world such as sleeper seeing, exclaiming to dead people, souls and perpetual absence.

In the beginning

The sky was

The birth of reclusion

As the altar water

 

The poem above resemble the religious hymns used by Sufis or those are singing in churches. The temple is a holy place for the Jews, and the water that the poet writes of in the poem might be wine that he replaced because of the fear of censorship. Moreover, wine is considered taboo in the Islamic society. Therefore, Omani poets are often compelled to avoid some vocabulary and replace some words with others because of social and religiously prohibitions. He then says:

Oh,

I’m from any water was spilled?

While the back flogged

By a dust of the rock and places.

The poet asks which water that has been baptised, in spite of the religious cruelty to the human who flogged his back and disparaged him among the Gentiles. It seems that the poet has a curse for religions.

On my hands, I carry a bird

On my shoulder, I carry the coffin

I’m physically tired

And,

The spirit is tired

While the night hugs it

Such as a Gull gizzard

Looking for a darkness in anonymity.

At any angle I’m

I will hide the bleeding furrow

To give my body

Even some of light.

The poem above has two themes. The first of this is loss and fatigue, perhaps because of existential questions about the ego or self and the poet’s relationship to God. The poet combines a body that is tired with a spirit that is also tired of his situation. The second theme is the search of the unknown. These are the root questions of Sufis in old Arab poetry, which involves endless research about the divine presence, leading poets to physical and spiritual exhaustion and fatigue. So, the poet concludes his poem by trying to grant his body a little bit of a shade to recover from exhaustion and fatigue.

          

Fatima Al Sheedi

Born in a coastal area on the northern of Oman called Saham, Fatima Al Sheedi writes poetry and articles to the Omani’s human, she explains that Oman has a legacy of poetry from ancient time. She believes that the new generation of poetry is a mix of the ancient and modern poetic (prose), although she is interested in poetic prose.

I’m writing,

Such as a lame ballet dancer

Blundering in movements

However,

Do not give up her dream.

 

Like a turtle is living in a fishbowl

Richly, the young are watching her.

Or

Like a blind pianist

Fumbling a tone keys by soul.

In the poem above, it is clear that the poet has a lack of confidence because she uses the metaphor of her writing as a lame dancer, a turtle in an aquarium or as a blind pianist. This is because the society in which she works rejects women, whether writers or poets, so she feels broken by the lack of encouragement. Nevertheless, she will not be defeated nor give up her dream of continuing writing. The community rejects a female writer today because there have been no women writing novels, short stories or poetry over the last 40 years and society is still conservative and has a lot of taboos.

The idea is coming in late at night

Causing pain to my soul

Naive and good

As befits a homeless idea

With torn clothes and a dusty face.

The poet describes her poetic inspiration arriving late at night and her visualising this inspiration as a “homeless idea.” That means that any creative writing starts with a small idea or a flash that the poet transforms into wider meanings in a harmonic poetic context.

She also wrote:

I’m accurately writing

As a sculptor works

Approaching from a tree trunk

Then

He decides to turn it into a woman.

Women are constantly adored for their beauty. Hence, the poet is trying to show that her poetic writing is a thing of beauty and that she considers it a gift to the people, arranged and coordinated to create an exquisite painting as the sculptor who transforms a trunk tree to a woman.

Hilal Al Hajri

Hilal Al Hajri was born in a village called Bidiyah in the eastern region of Oman. He worked as an editor in local newspaper before getting a PhD from a university in the United Kingdom and becoming a professor of comparative literature at Sultan Qaboos University. He has written poetry books as well as translating many orientalist studies about Oman, which are called “Omani image” in English literature.

Al Hajri has one word that frequently recurs in his poems, like a poetic dictionary: desert. This is because he born in nomadic desert environment.

I’m going away

I will,

Drown in the desert

I will,

Clinging to the sacrosanct silence

Omani society is collectivist in its properties and characters so if an individual decides to leave, to immigrate, this does not mean they experience a sense of alienation but instead unilateral isolation. The poem above is about leaving for the depths of the desert which he considers sacred, because the relation between the Bedouin people and the desert is very strong and therefore the desert is a sacred place from which they take the meaning of life. There are many books published about the relationship between the Bedouin and the desert world and it creatures, such as Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger.

Al Hajri writes:

And unsung

As enamored chaste sings

To their concubines

Until the death.

The poet desires the desert as if it were his lover, and wants to sing to it forever. The poems conclude for the reader the extent of the relationship between the poet and the desert.

 

Oh earth,

Be as a flame

Such as hellfire

Will not be raised, except hugging you

And

The history.

 

Oh, Oman mountains

How long,

Crucifying the *Acacia tree on my forehead?

Oh, Oman desert

How long,

Fill my pocket with sand?

 

And sprinkle the torment on my eyes?

Do you force me to leave?

* Acacia: A tree or shrub of warm climates which bears spikes or clusters of yellow or white flowers and is typically thorny.

The poet declares his commitment to staying at home and not leaving, despite the harsh life. He uses two terms that important in the Omani geography, the mountains and the desert, and he explains how life is cruel in both of those places. He uses the metaphor to show that that he does not mean the cruelty of the mountains or the desert but the society, politics and religion that perform the role of guardianship of the people living in Oman. The Acacia tree is a guide of patience and endurance that the poet mentions as crucified as a sign of patience for all the fatigue that he faced in his homeland.

• Acacia Trees

He then finishes the poem:

No

I will not leave

More sadness, Oh Mother

I will not leave until

My bones liquefy on the mountains,

One after another.

The poet strongly confirms his insistence to stay in his community by using strong language, writing that he will stay until his body decays. He describes bones like liquid, which is of course not possible in reality; however, the intent of this phrasing is proving his commitment to his place and community despite the cruelty of life there.

Ahmed Al Hashmi

Ahmed al Hashmi was born in the interior region in Oman in village called Adam. He has worked in a local press for more than 25 years. Although he has lack in publishing however, has characterised by his own rhythm, because of the life contradictions he lives resulting from acute stress. In his poems we find a sense of outrage, ridicule, turmoil and rebellion. There is hope in his writing but losses remain in much of his poetry.

I was standing in pain

Under the forbidden tree

Waiting for life to fall.

 

In the above poem, the poet describes his life as having been full of pain and mistakes. He criticises himself for his mistakes, as he flogs himself and rebels against his past that led him to the pain.

I’m a wet tree by screaming

In a troubled and fearful jungle

Who can read to me a story?

Who is giving a hand?

Who in twilight sings me a peace song.

It is noted in these poems that fear and confusion haunt the poet. Although he depicts scenes from nature, it is a nature that is full of cruelty that translates into reader the troubled life of the poet, who is looking to be saved from his situation.

He writes:

My life is a butterfly that has a short life

My tear in a night belly

Ibex staring at a crumbled mountain

Desert folded like a ring

Despite all that

Sometimes

A happy country is calling me.      

The metaphoric structure is very clear in all of Al Hashmi’s poems, perhaps because he is afraid to be blunt about what hurts him. Despite the despair, frustration and chaos in the poet’s life, he clings to and expresses a desire for peace, freedom and liberation from the influence of the world and restrictions.

Badria Al Wahabi

Badria Al Wahabi was born in Muscat, the capital of Oman. She has written four poetry books and participated in many cultural events. In addition to this, she worked in local press for years. Her poems are always full of nostalgia for the past for different times and places.

When we began singing,

We grant our voices to heavens

The nostalgic cups cried on the table

We said: will come back … then disappeared

We stayed for years, measuring the distances

To restore the remaining, dispersed by winds.

The poem references many items of unknown. Although there are many, the poet did not specify their number or who they are. Are they family or friends, lovers or enemies? The poet alludes to the nostalgia for one meeting that will never happen again. Overall, nostalgia is strongly present in all of the poetry from the Omani poets; it is evidence that a dream for the country’s future is not clear. Might be because of frustration at all.

On any soul, butterflies flying

Of ours sorrow?

On any injury

Lilies sing in a desolation waiting?

On any cosmos

Those aches fly?

In infinities blue.

In the above poem, sometimes it combines opposites such as butterflies with sadness, lilies with loneliness and blue with woes. Therefore, she expresses the feeling of looking for hope and beauty in spite of pain. So, the nostalgia that the poet looks for is the beautiful moments that lacking in her life.

I have been travelling above the clouds

Picking roses

Capturing the clouds over the mountains

Dropped their spray.

This poem is a fantasy story, showing a romantic past. There is nothing in it of the present or the future, just throwing back to an imagined nostalgic past. This depiction leads to questions of why the poet shows so much nostalgia and searches for a missing hope, while it is clear in the poems that the present does not exist. Perhaps the poet’s current life is so harsh life that she denies it in her poetry.

Apdyaghooth   

 

Apdyaghooth was born in the Al Dhahira region. In his childhood he lived in a mountainous village, where the population were involved in farming and herding sheep and goats. Most of his poems look back to this village lifestyle and show people living life simply between the mountains and farms, even though the poet spent the second part of his life in the capital of Oman, Muscat.

If the goats back to the pasture

Flowers to mountains,

Poetry to paint

And

Words to The God.

 

Were not,

Patient poet

Sat down in a queer evening

Placed first clay for compassionate Gods.      

Crowned by poppy mothers

Bedtime story.

The romantic poem above calls for inner peace, which is what the poet is looking for. He depicts the bustling capital city as having stolen his dream; the innocent time that he experienced during his childhood in the village, where a peaceful environment prevailed.

Poetry and painting, along with many creative innovations, are a sign of culture in all civilisations from ancient times. However, recently some societies do not believe in supporting the creative arts, which indicates they are backward and reactionary. Therefore, the poet mentions them in his poem to prove what he believes is important to people.

Profusely rained

Valleys are streaming

Shepherds took their flocks to shelters

Into Acacia storm tree.

Then,

A rainbow appeared

The colour of the earth changed as a shepherd’s hair.

The poem above shows the poet returning back to thoughts of childhood and life there, so he sings of the beauty of nature. Nostalgia is incompatible with the current society and lifestyles. Goat-grazing is no longer a common occupation as it used to be in Oman and it is now confined to some Bedouins in different areas. While perhaps this occurred because of economic development, it has played a role in changing the course of life for the majority of people in Oman.

Butterfly flew

Butterfly vulgarise

As an adored spirit in a field

It’s going away and followed

Such as child follows eternal light.

Although the poem is written as if it were a scene from a childhood movie, its vocabulary shows that there is another meaning, where the butterfly is the poet’s life, which he compares to a free spirit that moves from one flower to another in search of eternal truth

In conclusion, this brief historical reading about prose poetry in Oman discusses the experiences of selected Omani poets and shows their poetic models. However, there are many poets who are not covered in this paper.

The Omani poetic experience is often associated with the political, social and religious environment in Oman. Therefore, the poets are influenced by their surrounding circumstances; hence, their poetry reflects their reality. There are three themes associated with the Omani place that existed across the poems studied in this paper: mountains, sea and desert. The integration of images with the poems makes it easier for the reader to link the poems with the place and environment. Moreover, it helps the reader to understand the poetic scenes.

 

The Author

Yahya Al Naabi is a journalist and secretary editing of Nizwa Cultural Magazine. He is also a poet having published two books; The life between two grave stones and Anthems looking for riverbanks. Al Naabi writes for many publications contributing columns, articles and conducting interviews with his poetic peers. Al Naabi has recently graduated from Bond University with a Masters’ degree in professional communications. He draws on his life experiences as a citizen of Oman and the world when writing his poetry and is passionate not only about poetry but also about his country, his family and communication.