The magazine Shi'r has resumed its weekly gathering, which it has named "Poetry Thursday," on November 7 at the American University Alumni Club in Ras Beirut.
The meeting was opened by Mr. Youssef al-Khal, proprietor and editor-in-chief of the magazine Shi'r, who welcomed those present and reviewed some of what the gathering accomplished last year and what it intends to organize this year in the way of talks on poetry and poetry evenings.
New faces were noticed, and it seems the temperature of "Poetry Thursday" will rise this year, for the poetic movement these circles have created is no longer to be taken lightly.
And speaking of the magazine Shi'r and its activity, we relate an amusing story — a novelty, perhaps, that has never before occurred in this country or in any other Arab country. When the fourth issue of the magazine appeared at the end of last October, Mr. Youssef al-Khal made an experiment that was counted a gamble, but he bore its responsibility alone: he placed fifty copies of the magazine Shi'r on a small table at the entrance of the Jafet Library at the American University, and above the table he hung a paper on which was written: (Put down the price — 150 piasters — and take a copy of the magazine), and he left the money in an open box, unwatched, all day and part of the night. A few days later the result came in — astonishing!
.. And the Thurayya Circle, too, has resumed its activity for this year, distributing its annual program, which takes the form of monthly literary evenings at which a lecture or a bouquet of poems is presented. The poet Said Akl opened the season with an evening of poetry on Saturday, November 2 last; the hall of the Ministry of Education was packed with the audience, and enthusiasm reached its height at certain of the "Lebanese" poems and others.
Mr. Sami Salibi, proprietor of the Ras Beirut Institute of Music and Drawing, never ceases to surprise us with something new... He recently announced the organization of an educational music program at the institute, in the form of a series of lectures with musical concerts attached to them, offered to members and to their friends every Thursday evening at seven o'clock for a modest annual fee.
We have learned that the aim of this program is to make musical culture, and the hearing of good concerts, available at negligible cost; may the friends of the institute appreciate this effort.
Few among our readers have not heard the name of Mrs. Adma Shakhashiri and her husband Dr. Zekin Shakhashiri — among the most ardent champions of the causes of childhood, and the originators of the idea of the "Juveniles' Club" and others besides.
Word has come to us from our friend Adma that she will spend this year in America with her husband, in study and research. Accompanying the couple on the journey are their children Bassam, Amal, and Muha, who have entered schools there so that their year will not go to waste.
We wish Dr. Zekin success in his scholarly mission, and we hope that Adma will supply us with the choicest of her observations and impressions — especially as she is one of the earliest friends of "The Woman's Voice" whom press of work has kept from continuing to write..
Early last November, visitors to the exhibition hall at UNESCO saw an exhibition by Iraqi artists, in which the dominance of the modern schools of art — cubism above all — over classicism was plain to see. Very, very few were the bright, cheerful colors, while somber hues prevailed.
The painting that most caught the eye was "The Milayas" by Mahmoud Sabri — this painter has a fertile brush.. Most of the canvases were bold new attempts, without doubt the first glimmerings of a blessed artistic renaissance in the sister land of Iraq...