Ode To The Poet Mohammed Ibn
al Dhib al-Ajami
‘I may become impatient and
stammer in my speech.’
The Koran,
Surah 26, The Poets, Verse 13
‘Make me deserving of praise
among posterity and count me among the heirs of the Blissful
Garden.’
The Koran,
Surah 26, The Poets, Verses 84-85
(N.J.
Dawood translation, Penguin, London 2003)
The
immense solitude, the open wound of the heart,
The book
of the sea outside the prison,
The sky
bluer than the soul, the stars which make
The nights
more tender, and your pain more free.
Here, my
eyes full of tears of friendship,
I read
your fine poems and tremble with astonishment
Before the
living grace of your words written in blood
Glorifying
Man and hymning Liberty!
Friend of
Beauty, child of the Doric muses,
Blessèd be
your soul, blessèd be your passion
For those
whom destiny, in its tragic fury
Crushes
and humiliates and casts aside.
May
austere time place upon your head
The
luminous crown of the invincible and valiant!
Note
Mohammed
Ibn al-Dhib al-Ajami (b.1976); Qatari poet, Ambassador of the Worldwide
Organisation Poetas del Mundo in his home country, was sentenced to life imprisonment for having criticised
the Emir and praised the ‘Arab Spring’ which Doha encouraged in Libya, Egypt,
Yemen and Syria. Mohammed Ibn al-Dhib al-Ajami was tried for ‘inciting to
overthrow the ruling system’, a charge which carries the death penalty. ‘It’s a
scandalous miscarriage of justice!,’ his lawyer Naguib al-Naimi said angrily
after the verdict was pronounced. The poet, who did not attend the hearing, has
been held in solitary confinement for a year and no member of his family has
been able to visit him.
The poets
of the world demand that this great voice of Poetry be freed.
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