I sold my soul to anxiety and worry and in return, I got a bunch of papers writes Khaled Kassab in his first collection of colloquial Arabic poetry.
“Ana Ra’e Baqr Waheed: Monmanamat Ghagreya (I am a Lone Cowboy: Gypsy Ornaments) is the young writer’s second poetry collection following “Darbet Shams (Sun Stroke), a compilation of long observations that saw Kassab – a columnist for the opposition daily Al-Dostor – let his imagination loose, discussing a wide range of topics ranging from the philosophical and religious to the socio-political.
“Cowboy is split into three loosely connected parts: I, Girls and The Script. A funky free-hand illustration introduces each segment. In the first part, a disfigured man is shown gazing into a mirror; in the second, a girl rides a bicycle above the clouds with her hair flying against a playful celestial background of moon and stars. In the last, a writer with pen in hand jots down some words, a cigarette beween his fingers and a coffee cup nearby.
All three illustrations are related to the central theme of the collection. The same cannot be said about both the title and cover art. An uneasy stretch of the imagination is needed to associate a cowboy or a black horse smoking a cigarette with the poetry.
Most of the poems are short, a few lines long, seldom over a page, and light. Kassab succeeds in creating intensity, density and rhythms without making his poems seem heavy or forced. While he relies on the absorbing detailed images he conjures, he more often than not disregards musical harmony between individual words, focusing instead on connotation.
To create intensity, Kassab uses paradoxes. With the simple, blithe style and the smooth colloquial Arabic, it’s difficult not to draw parallels with Salah Jaheen’s famous paradoxes in the “Rubiyat (Quartets). Naturally, Kassab’s words fall short of Jaheen’s on account of both the strength of his images and the shock factor.
In Jaheen’s verses, the revelation at the end of each poem violently overpowers the premise introduced in its beginning. In Kassab’s, such drive is not as violent and hence, it doesn’t ring as loud.
Paradoxes are far from the main attraction in “Cowboy; the strength of the collection lies in its themes and the questions Kassab tries to answer. In this respect, the collection is closer at heart to the brilliant quartets of the Persian poet Omar Khayyam.
Questions of fate, destiny and free will are the common threads linking Kassab and Omar Khayyam. Pondering the limits and meaning of free will within the grand plan of the universe, the poet sees his choices as both a means of salvation and cause for frustration. Kassab breathes fresh air into this ancient dilemma that makes up the overarching theme of his “Cowboy.
“Every new moon or new sun,
Everyone is in the same danger.
Therefore, live
And leave death to destiny.
Although Kassab occasionally seems satisfied with simple answers, he soon returns to pondering life’s script and what his choices amount to within the grand scheme of the universe.
These ideas resurface in “Girls where he, a girl, and a kiss restlessly search for each other, each realizing destiny’s plan. However, Kassab here seems to be more interested in the turbulence that love strikes into his heart than in what this turbulence signifies.
“A girl is a riddle, he writes, “and whoever solves it, deserves it.
There are also a number of poems that shyly touch upon the physical dimension of love. These as well as the more romantic ones serve as a break from the hints of gloominess pervading the segments where Kassab contemplates destiny.
Overall, Kassab’s first poetry collection is a great read. He has succeeded in tackling the tough questions he set out to confront with the aid of colloquial Arabic, making for an easy, and at times even memorable, read.
“I am a Lone Cowboy is, without a doubt, an exceptional addition to the modern library of colloquial Arabic poetry.
