A Date with a Literary Scholar ~ Mr. Refaat Alareer

Today, we the literature students from University Putra Malaysia has a golden opportunity on meeting up with Mr. Refaat Alareer from Palestine. He is an English Literature teacher. He was very enthusiastic about his works. Throughout the two-hour session with him, he talks about his works passionately. The talk was in full swing. As the listeners, we were able to actually feel how he felt when he first wrote all the poems. Things were so chaotic back in his native country. It shocked us that he took almost a month to come visit Malaysia. And, he has to endure all the hardships to crossover the border of Gaza to Egypt before he could reach Malaysia. Before the talk, I was unaware and being kept in the dark on why wars happen between those two countries. All I know is many innocent people are killed daily and nonchalantly. The innocent people ranging from the babies to old folks were never spared for lives. Today, Palestine is all scattered apart and Gaza is their only land of hopes.

Mr. Refaat has a few good tips on how to write good poetry.

• Read a lot of good and high quality poetry
• Believe that you can write good stuff
• Have the will to do so
• Scribble your thoughts. Always.
• Imitate
• Be yourself

Mr. Refaat went on further in stressing that we must always carry a small notebook, or at least a phone with us. This is to avoid us from losing any good idea that might come in our way unexpectedly. Free write is very important, in this case.

Mr. Refaat also owns a blog where he will post all his poems, and to share it with the people around the globe. It mainly talks about the suffering of the innocent in Gaza, and how they live in fear.

•  http://thisisgaza.wordpress.com/

As we read through his poetry, we can trace down these three elements in it

• Dialogue
• Performance / Drama
• Palestine

His poetry are all beautiful, soulful, meaningful, and aspiring. When he read some of his works during the talk, we were carried away by him. We can actually feel the meaning of each and every word in the poem. Although, we are all living in a peaceful country as Malaysia but somehow, we felt as if we were there in Palestine.

During the Q & A session, there was a question that intrigued me. That question was posed by one of my classmates. She asked what is the significance of Olive in Palestine, in which Mr. Refaat replied it is believed to be the cure of every illness. The Olive Oil are used to rub on the body to ease the ache and pain.

Furthermore, Mr. Refaat also introduced us to a few famous poets from Palestine. Their poetry were all about the ongoing wars in Gaza. Poets such as Mahmoud Darwish and Tamim Bargouti are famous for their Arabic poems while poets like Rafeet Ziadah and Susan Abulhawa use English in writing. This is because English is the most accessible language and easy to be understood by people around the globe. It helps to transcend the message clearly and easily.

Below are some of the videos about the poets mentioned above.

                                                  Rafeet Ziadah reciting "We teach life, Sir"

                                                               Wala by Susan Abulhawa

Poem on Today's War ~ Farrah Sarafa

Palestine Fig
By Farrah Sarafa 

Inner worlds lined brown like the earth,

tinted gold like divine mirth,

the occupied race of people plead

for an outside light to dissolve their worry

into the Dead Sea.

Dense bubbles, sugar grains condense

like caramel apple heating

under my hot tongue. I imagine

soldiers' threats induce a similar

effect on their poor children who have long been

constrained to sacrifice

their fame, knowledge and skill. Sweet fig flesh

that grips wrinkled outer skin

like old native man's hands made hallow

from fear, disdain, longing to cry peace by tears

formed from the pain of clouds

waiting to be tasted and felt.

Pains produced from sweet-thirsty twigs,

resting on the earth, come together,

tighten, roll, and shrink into small balls called seeds-

reproduce from the hungers, contempt and needs

of Palestinian

souls. They swim in the memories

of their buried ancestors,

whose lives, disintegrated, nourish

fig tree soils, coalesce to become seeds

that constitute fig fruit.

Hearts gold- earth speckled, firm flavor,

a seeded promise that you

will savor the Arabian air

that you will inhale when you eat a fig

from my ancestors.

 Blood, Sand and Tears of a Young Boy
By Farrah Sarafa

I wipe my tears while they-
they have no tears left to cry.
Dehydrated, like dried pineapple,
the closest they come  to resembling the concentric yellow
and fiber-branching slices
is the tired eye;
swollen and puffed like a pregnant belly
their shadow-plated arches, underneath
reveal how much they question "why."

"For what are you longing,"
I ask, looking into the complicated retina of the young boy.
"What is floating in the water of your deep and narrow well my
dear?"
He only speaks fear.

I feel his mother's cries moving inside of me,
shaking off flower vases and pots of marble stone
from granite table-tops
I shiver; steady in will and
willing to stay, I am made from glass
while this little boy is made from clay.
He is brought to pot by American soldiers
from which the Israelis may drink their raisin-milk in warm,
  making excuses to stay
in my mother's Palestine.

Placing my hand on his cold, winter's chest
I transfer my comforts as warmth, but their flag's pointing west;
  they are looking for help from a nation that is "best,"
though it is we
that have made Iraq into a land of nuclear test.
Missile tanks and planks
for cannonballs make storm in a place where
smoke bombs, tear gases and raping little girls from lower
classes
bring to form
nerve knots and tissue clots
along the green-starred spine of Iraq.
These people need no more tears;
  they are merely
  hungry.

"What does she hide beneath her big red striped gown" he asks,
inquiring of her tasks.
"Rice with cumin-spiced meats and lemon-sesame treats
or niter, sulfur and charcoal dynamite for an endless fight
against the rest of the world," he wonders of her vast plunders.

Desert souls, their tears are made of blood mixed with sand
while I, American, laugh in pain
     at Charlie Chaplin going insane on the television screen.
CNN bulletin interrupts my bliss with news of terrors
about red and flaming wearers
of suicide and contempt.
My laughs push into cries
and form a current for the Arabian Sea
whose crystal salts perspire and become of me.
Her waves undulate like snake-thin layers of blood thickened with
sand and stone
like a serpent's plea to be let free
  and to roam
the Garden of Eden.
America.

Dulce et Decorum Est

                                   Dulce et Decorum Est 

                                                                                  By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 

And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots  

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, 

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . . 

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 

Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud  

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest  

To children ardent for some desperate glory, 

The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 

Pro patria mori.

                               

The Greatest Poet - World War I

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on 18 March 1893. He was a soldier, second lieutenant in the Manchester Regimen. He served for England during World War I. He had seen lots of gruesome bloodshed during the war. Sadly, these experiences he had caused him to suffer from neurasthenia. He was traumatized. Therefore, he was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatments. During his recuperating in Craiglockhart, he met a poet namely Siegfried Sassoon. This  changed his life. He began write, in poetry form. He channeled his traumatized experiences into writing as a way to escape pain that he had to endure mentally and emotionally. Owen was also recognized as the greatest English poet of World War I. He managed to convey his feelings into all the poems he wrote. Words he used was precise and accurate to the point that sometimes the reader could feel what he felt. Some of his greatest works are Dulce et Decorum Est, Insensibility, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility and Strange Meeting. 

References

•  http://www.warpoetry.co.uk
• http://en.wikipedia.org 

The Meaning of Drama

What is Drama? 

"A prose or verse composition, especially one telling a serious story, that is intended for representation by actors impersonating the characters and performing the dialogue and action." - The Free Dictionary Online

"A composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance; play" - Merriam-Webster, dictionary. 

Drama existed back in the days of Ancient Greek. The word drama itself was originated from the Greek, carrying the meaning of action. Unlike any other form of literature, drama need a fairly high thinking mind. The writer must be of someone who can write the scripts or dialogues that can convey the emotions in it. In the world of drama, the lines uttered by the performers on stage play a severe importance in order to bring out the lives of the characters. The rate of the success of drama is measured by the comments and compliments made by the audiences. For a drama to be successfully recognized by the people from all ages, the writer must put in excessive efforts in creating the perfect lines and dialogues. The weight of the dialogues must be up to the bar, in order to have the audiences to experience the roller coaster ride of feelings and emotions from the characters played on stage. Drama was popularized by William Shakespeare. His works were fantastically well performed on stage during the Elizabethan Era. From Shakespeare, we have The Globe. The Globe was used by Shakespeare for his plays to be performed to the public eyes. There are many types of drama ranging from tragedy, comedy, and romance. 

The Meaning of Poetry

What is Poetry? 

"the spontaneous overflow of powerful things" - William Wordsworth 

"If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry" 

- Emily Dickinson

"Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing." - Dylan Thomas 

Poetry existed back in the days of Old English and Middle English. Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales were prose - poems with stories in it. From my point of view, poets write poems to express their inaugural feelings.The best way to express one's feelings without being suppressed is through writing, but what form of writing? Do one write novel, novella, or short stories to express themselves? To some, yes. But it does not really reflect your true emotions. Poetry is unique and it blends easily as the usage of words are minimal and hit the bull's eye. Generally, the words used in poems are accurate, and the readers could feel it instantly without all the fuss and hustle bustle of going through the whole book as in novels and such. Poetry comes with stanzas and rhymes. That's the backbone of poems. In my opinion, poems are very structural. It has spines, bones, and even blood vessels, just like any human being. It is alive. It breathe. If stanzas and rhymes are considered as the backbones of the poem. The words used must be listed as the spines, and blood vessels in all poems that has ever created by poets from all around the world. In reference to Dickinson's quote above, she gave us an impression that poems have the characteristics of a human. It was as if poems can hold her tightly, wrap around her like a shawl, or even hug her to warm her up. That indeed, it is true that poems are alive. Furthermore, in reference to Thomas's quote, we know that poems can go as far as to be our loyal companion. It sticks to us. It will always be at our side during our ups and downs. Through poetry, we often get this overwhelming feelings and emotions that eventually we will be swept away gracefully, or taking up for a thrilling roller coaster ride. With it, comes in package that sometimes we find ourselves crying and laughing as we read the poem. It is an amazing feeling! 

Words Cited

• "Flanagan, Mark. Contemporary Literature Guide"  Grasping at the Indefinable. http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/poetry/a/poetry.htm

*Answers given by the Blogger are of her own opinions, solely*