Oman- aThe Jordanian Minister of Culture, Haifa al-Najjar, delegated Director of Studies and Publishing, Salem Daham, to represent her in the publicity ceremony of the book “Jamr al-Ward” by the poet and critic Muhammad Salam Jumailan, in the presence of a remarkable audience of intellectuals and those interested in the poetry scene, at the Royal Cultural Center in Amman last Wednesday evening.
And Jumalan dedicated his collection – issued by Dar Al-Khaleej for Publishing and Distribution in Amman a few days ago – “to the only Jasmine who shaded his heart, so he dispensed with it from the illusion of the forest,” as stated in the dedication.
The Diwan – which is the poet’s fifth – contains 90 poems ranging from vertical to iambic, while preserving the disciplined musical rhythm, which he collected in 200 pages of small pieces.
Through a quick wandering between the poems, three directions are revealed: the first is sentimental poems full of evoking love, light and beauty, and triumphs for life, apparently stemming from a subjective sentimental experience, while the second direction came under the title “Shaja”, where the poet explored the losses of life and the sorrows of hope from the loss of a lost life in Life stations charged with a lot of anxiety and protest against wrong choices, while the third trend includes a package of poetic miniatures.
Guarding dreams
In a participation in the publicity ceremony entitled “Psychological Time in the Embers of Roses”, critic Dr. Rashid Issa described the poet Muhammad Jumail as “a companion with his smile and tears, as long as he took turns guarding sheep and dreams, and they counted the full moon as football, so they kicked it or thought it was a loaf, so they ate it.”
Issa said that the title “The Embers of Roses” stopped him, including the controversy of the two extremes, “The embers are the joy of despair at the firewood, and the glowing calmness of the oppressed, rejected, neglected branch, so the fire gives it a respectful presence, while the rose is an aesthetic mediator for the senses that delights the eyes with colors and refreshes the nose with the pleasure of smelling.” And an aesthetic mediator of feelings, which the lover carries with her as a symbol of love, and presents it to the beloved, and the friend carries it as a symbol of sympathy, so as to present it to his sick friend.
From the point of view of critic Issa, the rose is “one of the most enduring plants for persecution. People are not satisfied with cutting collectively to obtain a bouquet, but rather they crush a thousand roses to obtain a small bottle of perfume, which is the true translation of the rose’s tears.”
Carbuncle and rose coexistence
Issa believes that the red ember has the shape of a rose, and the red rose has the shape of an ember, and between them there is an apparent visual unity and a difference in performance.
He adds that the poet Muhammad Jamaan brought together the contradictory to serve each other, so the rose gave the effect of embers and gave the embers the softness of the rose, and in that a deep semantic load, the least of which is that the title embodies the idea of the coexistence of a thing with its opposite, that is, the “dialectic of existence” that is based only on the meeting of the two opposites: It shows its goodness.”
According to Issa, in the Diwan there is a solemn psychological cry similar to the crying of the spikelet in front of the scythe.. The spikelet wants to remain bright green, and the scythe wants to harvest it in response to human orders when it also responds to the impulse of hunger, so the struggle between the beneficial and the beautiful occurs, and the beneficial triumphs, according to his description.
And both of them begin his collection in the poem “The Strangers” with a burst of pride that denies the time of fading and absence, the time of turning embers into ashes, the rose into perfume, and the spike into flour, and he says:
I will not miss
No, I don’t even think about missing out
The flower of life will still dream of perfumes
The poet addresses his beloved saying:
Don’t get caught up in the rustling of autumn leaves
The cup of life will still be full
And drink it together we strangers here
He concludes his poem with a solemn note:
I bear witness that the Almighty poured out your light
That you are from the light of the Most High Jerusalem
And the nectar of the elephant
These are my letters
now ignites leisurely
Poetry and education programs
In the participation of Professor of Literature and Modern Criticism at Al-Balqa Applied University, Dr. Hassan Al-Majali, entitled “An Approach to Poetry Spaces: The Poetics of Title, the Space of Contrast, and the Windows of Symbol”, he stressed the necessity of the presence of poetry and art in general in education programs in the stages of public and higher education in a way that addresses many of the social ills and ills. and ethical.
Al-Majali pointed out the presence of tension and interpretation in the poet’s meanings, citing the poem “Ignition”, in which he addresses both the night, saying:
O night, tell me what you want from my light
To mess with my bleeding veins
Stand at your limit, the one who throws the palm of the wind is a hawk
Rise shoulder storms
And no matter how much you resisted his impulse
His arm won’t bend.
It will remain like embers burning emotions
The embers of roses – according to al-Majali – are the embers of the interior burning with passion, “the passion of love that resists the night that lies outside the self and haunts it from its light to shout at it: stand by your limits,” which is what reminds of the opinion of the French philosopher Bachelard in his psychological analysis of fire, “Love is nothing but a transmitted fire.” And fire is nothing but sudden love.”
And the poet Muhammad Jumailan wanted to say that “love has the power of fire and the leaf of roses, and the ignition of love illuminates the self and grants it one of its weapons spent defending the beauty of existence and resisting its long night,” as Majali sees it.
Human pain
For her part, the writer Kifaya Awajan believes that the book “Embers of Roses” combines beauty and light to form life.
Awajan said – in response to a question by Al-Jazeera Net – that the poems combine life in poetry and the poetics of life, in a modernist elegance that triumphs for the language of the era.
And based on the desire of the attendees, they both recited two poems: “The Birth of Spirit” and “My Mother”, from which we extract:
She is proud of her walk and proceeds in the neighing of pride
And her head is always above the galaxy
As if it were a spear, it came from the beginning of the journey
It was if my hand ran away from her to pick a rose
Over the neighbor’s garden fence
Call me loud enough, boy
When I’m in pain, I scream
In response to a question by Al-Jazeera Net, the poet tried to practice criticism on his poetry, and Jumalan said, “I practiced the process of criticism so that I would not be biased towards myself and put it in the hands of my fellow poets and critics, and I listen carefully to their vision, proposals and visions, because they are poets who know better about the paths of poetry and to what degree is a person unique about his counterparts.
He said, “I write in poetry from the experience of joy or pain so that I do not become a talkative person. When I am in pain, the cry of the self seems greater than the screams of poetry.”
Dr. Atallah Al-Hajaya – who directed the publicity ceremony – described the “Jamr Al-Ward” collection as a personal and successful experience, and it gives a great insight into the profound experience of Jumalan.