What do you think?
Rate this book
Angry Voices: An Anthology of the Off-Beat New Egyptian Poets
A new movement is emerging in Egyptian literature―urban in its energies; cosmopolitan in its national, Arabic, and western influences; and independent and rowdy in its voice. For centuries, Arabic literature mandated traditional, unchanging, highly structured language and forms. In the 1960s and 1970s, writers rebelled to write in a variety of vernaculars. Now, young Egyptian poets are inventing new ways of writing. Rejecting both traditional Arabic formalism and the vernacular rebellion―and, contradictorily, drawing equally on these traditions and others―they radically combine and recombine influences and bring new experiences into their poetry. They embrace experimentation. Rejected at first by the literary establishment, these poets founded their own magazines, one of which appropriated a derisive term that had been used to dismiss Locusts. Now one of Egypt's most honored translators and writers has joined with one of those Locusts to gather a selection of this postmodern writing in one place for the first time. With its edginess and play of styles, this collection showcases a dynamic, emergent scene.
144 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2003
19 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 24, 2009
Like most anthologies I don't LOVE everything in it, BUT, the things I DO LOVE I LOVE SO MUCH that the book can only have 5 stars!
And if this anthology proves to give examples of what's really, currently being written in Egypt, WELL, what a relief to see there's NO Billy Collins Egyptian DOPPELGANGER! Thank GOD, or Allah, SOMEONE!
SO MANY WEIRD AND AMAZING POEMS! Like this one by Mohamed Lasheen:
NIGHTMARES FIT TO AROUSE MISGIVINGS
Since rheumatic fever and obesity destroyed
My joints, I have been stuck
With a glue of pungent piss odor
To my steadfast bed.
I experience the world from a small aperature in the floor where extant and extinct kinds of insects gather.
Sometimes I watch their festival of storing provisions and, occasionally, their mating under my magnifying glass.
(I laugh to no end when I imagine the amount of semen
produced by the male.)
Sometimes I examine a strange ritual
When with their bodies they make interesting circles.
Bored, I pour a glass of water
On their world.
A Noah may be born into the world,
Building his ark from a biscuit crumb
And so would save them from the deluge.
But the deluge spares no one.
Ond day I woke up from a terrible
Nightmare.
There was a huge beetle, followed by three young ones, rolling a ball of dung. I believe it could have gotten it from my own bowl under the bed and was making straight for my head to judge by the direction in which his antennae pointed. With a speed I never thought I possessed, I hurled my shoe at it. His entrails grossly soiled the place as if I had killed a calf.
When I later learned that this beetle was the very sacred scarab of you, I was overcome by a fit of crying--very deep indeed.
--------------------
MANY MORE poems in here you will want to read!
CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com
And if this anthology proves to give examples of what's really, currently being written in Egypt, WELL, what a relief to see there's NO Billy Collins Egyptian DOPPELGANGER! Thank GOD, or Allah, SOMEONE!
SO MANY WEIRD AND AMAZING POEMS! Like this one by Mohamed Lasheen:
NIGHTMARES FIT TO AROUSE MISGIVINGS
Since rheumatic fever and obesity destroyed
My joints, I have been stuck
With a glue of pungent piss odor
To my steadfast bed.
I experience the world from a small aperature in the floor where extant and extinct kinds of insects gather.
Sometimes I watch their festival of storing provisions and, occasionally, their mating under my magnifying glass.
(I laugh to no end when I imagine the amount of semen
produced by the male.)
Sometimes I examine a strange ritual
When with their bodies they make interesting circles.
Bored, I pour a glass of water
On their world.
A Noah may be born into the world,
Building his ark from a biscuit crumb
And so would save them from the deluge.
But the deluge spares no one.
Ond day I woke up from a terrible
Nightmare.
There was a huge beetle, followed by three young ones, rolling a ball of dung. I believe it could have gotten it from my own bowl under the bed and was making straight for my head to judge by the direction in which his antennae pointed. With a speed I never thought I possessed, I hurled my shoe at it. His entrails grossly soiled the place as if I had killed a calf.
When I later learned that this beetle was the very sacred scarab of you, I was overcome by a fit of crying--very deep indeed.
--------------------
MANY MORE poems in here you will want to read!
CAConrad
http://CAConrad.blogspot.com
Displaying 1 of 1 review