A verse play by Dr. Salim Haidar Dar al-Nashr lil-Jami'iyyin
"The Tongues of Time" opens two spacious doors before you. The first is Dr. Kamal al-Hajj's brilliant introduction, in which the smooth pen and the glittering style arrest you, as does also the rich, analytical thought we have come to know in Dr. al-Hajj.
The second door is the play itself (the heart of the matter), and the speech in it belongs to others than heroes and adventurers. It is the tale of Time, laden with secrets that are beyond all riddles... It is the tragedy of man as he walks lost through the windings of his path, encircled by past and future, buffeted by the storms of domineering Time, so that he overlooks the present and forgets the existence of his own day.
Dr. Haidar's verse in his play stirs us with a thought that weaves around us circle upon circle of far-reaching meditation... It is of that poetry which your mind and your heart both love.
By Youssef Asaad Ghanem (Brazil) Safadi Commercial Press
Colloquial verse remains the Lebanese's pampered child, and its pipes are many; flute after flute plays them for us in our mountains and our countryside and across our sea, where those dear ones entrusted to us multiply...
Youssef Asaad Ghanem is one of those poets to whom the beauties of the colloquial have flowed of themselves. His songs move lightly through subjects most of which are from here... from Lebanon, with
which his soul is imbued and for which his tender heart applauds.
He is a dutiful son of ours in Brazil, and his poems are the sweetest bouquet of love an emigrant could offer to his Lebanon.
A collection of stories by Halim Barakat, published by "Dar Majallat Shi'r," with a foreword by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra — a brilliant study of the characteristics of the story and the novel in our present age, of their share of commitment, and then of the anxiety that rules the souls of the young generation.
The heroes of Halim Barakat's stories set forth in their inner struggle and their fear in pursuit of their freedom — and often they perish short of it — and hence his stories are truthful pictures of the state of youth, in their yearning to be freed from the bonds imposed by tradition, society, and politics.
The language Barakat uses is swift and graceful, in harmony with the nature of the stories and the course of their events; and in this he has succeeded in taking hold of the reader and in being sure of his company all along the way. The masterpiece of his collection is without doubt the story "Silence and Rain."
A new collection of verse by the poet Nadhir Azmah, author of "'Ataba" and "They Wounded Even the Moon" — likewise published by "Dar Majallat Shi'r." It is a new production of unfettered poetry, rich in delicate feelings and in vivid, splendid tableaux, and in that powerful longing — the poet's longing for his people in an exile forced upon him — and then that deep resentment in his heart, and
the symbolic charting of a way out of the black straits that wrap humanity round and round.
Nadhir Azmah's collection "Flesh and Wheat-Ears" is poetry to be read with joy and with tears, and many of its poems will be memorized and sung...
The great assembly hall of the American University was packed on Thursday evening, January 23 last, with hundreds of people, come to attend the commemoration of Iliya Abu Madi, at the invitation of the men of letters and under the patronage of literature. Perhaps it was this very popularity that paved the way, from the outset, for the ceremony's brilliant success.
The master of ceremonies, Youssef al-Khal, opened the proceedings with a minute of silence in mourning for the man commemorated, then introduced the five speakers in turn, each of whom spoke of Abu Madi from his own particular angle. His friend George Saydah elegized him in a tender, traditional ode; the great poetess Nazik al-Malaika (Iraq) placed him with due respect in her precise poetic balance; Sheikh Abdullah al-Alayli delivered an eloquent address on poetry; then Adonis recited selections from Abu Madi's verse, and his recitation was truly splendid. After him came the word of Syria, delivered by Dr. Sami al-Dahhan. The ceremony was closed by the friend of the man honored, our great man of letters Mikhail Naimy, who touched upon some of the departed poet's stances in verse and on his own memories of him...
And as the people were about to leave, one of the departed's kinswomen, Miss Melvina Abu Madi, rose and thanked the committee of honor.