The "Sukayna Forum" in Damascus

... In Damascus today there is a youthful movement, given the name of the "Sukayna Forum," which has begun to make its way in the refined literary circles — it is a grouping of ladies and men who meet once a month at the house of the forum's founder and president, Mrs. Thuraya al-Hafez. Lectures and literary studies are delivered, the evenings are filled with poetry from both sexes, and discussions are carried on after the fashion of what used to take place in the salon of Sukayna bint al-Husayn in the Umayyad age, in an atmosphere of understanding and respect..

As for the secret of the flourishing of the "Sukayna Forum," it goes back to the personality of Mrs. Thuraya al-Hafez: she has united a blazing intelligence with a lofty energy that knows no flagging, and thanks to this — and with the help of a devoted group headed by the secretary, Miss Inayat Ramzi — she has been able to gather a choice elite of writers and poets into this small literary circle. It is enough to know that His Excellency the poet, Mr. Badawi al-Jabal, is its honorary president, and that among the members are ministers, deputies, and directors-general, among them Mr. Fuad al-Shayeb, Director-General of Propaganda, Publication, and Broadcasting.

The evening of Thursday, February 17, was the appointed meeting of the "Sukayna Forum," and on a special invitation Mrs. Edvick Jureidini Shayboub traveled to Damascus to recite selections from her collection "Bawh"; the guests also heard a valuable lecture delivered by Dr. Shakib al-Jabiri on his impressions of Iran, gathered during his stay there as his country's minister plenipotentiary.

After the meeting Mrs. Shayboub became acquainted with new faces of contemporary Syrian poetry, and was struck with the greatest admiration for the sensitive lyric poems — and social ones drawn from the very heart of life — recited by the poetess Mrs. Aziza Haroun... as if they were tremors, nay, sighs from the innermost depths!! Nor shall we forget the poetry throbbing with life, the pictorial canvases of our sweet countryside... What a poet is this Nazir al-Azm! He brings out the beauties for you, color upon color, with the brush of a poet of fine taste who loves his land... and shuts his eyes to the faults of our countryside, as though our countryside were a garden beneath which rivers flow!!

Blessed be this literary renaissance in Damascus... and blessed be the efforts of the women and men who sustain it...