{"id":749,"date":"2015-04-02T14:03:02","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T14:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=749"},"modified":"2019-01-24T13:09:52","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T13:09:52","slug":"mst-tutor-jenny-lewis-every-beautiful-poem-is-an-act-of-resistance-reflections-on-a-voyage-poetique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=749","title":{"rendered":"‘Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance’ – MSt Tutor Jenny Lewis at the Al Kalima International Forum of Poetry, Morocco, March 2015."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance\u2019[1]<\/a><\/sup>: <\/strong>reflections on a voyage po\u00e9tique.
\n<\/em><\/strong>By Jenny Lewis, 31 March 2015<\/p>\n

\"Carcanet<\/a><\/strong>For every physical journey there is an accompanying internal, psychological and spiritual one and my trip to the Third Rencontre Internationale de la Po\u00e9sie in Morocco this month was no exception. The fact that the festival theme this year was \u2018poetry and resistance\u2019 was the reason I had been invited. Since the publication of my book Taking Mesopotamia <\/em>(Oxford Poets\/ Carcanet, 2014) I have been categorized as a contemporary war poet, tackling themes of resistance and dissent. The fact that I have a growing body of poetry translated into Arabic (with the help of the Iraqi poet Adnan al-Sayegh) has also given me a passport to Arabic-speaking festivals and is a key factor in opening doors to a wider international readership. Over the eight days of the festival I and the other 22 poets from 15 countries gave 12 readings and took part in round table discussions on where the poetry of dissent is taking us in the continuing aftermath of the 2003-2011 Iraq War. My book started as a search for my lost father who fought with the South Wales Borderers in Mesopotamia-Iraq in the First World War and died when I was a few months old at the end of the Second World War. Because of this it is deeply personal to me and the fact that poems from the book shared the same forum as the work of great activists such as Andr\u00e9 Breton, Yannis Ritsos and Mahmoud Darwish \u2013 not to mention the other poets I was travelling with – gave me a sense of a validation. A core theme of the debates and round table discussions was the importance of moderation in the revolutionary discourse, reflecting Mahmoud Darwish\u2019s assertion that \u2018every beautiful poem is an act of resistance\u2019 and Adonis\u2019[2]<\/a> <\/sup><\/span>belief that focusing on the artistic aspects of poetry is a more effective way of educating people than propaganda, and a better way to serve the nation than more aggressive forms of resistance.<\/p>\n

At the discussion on \u2018poetry and dissent\u2019 at the Regional Commission for Human Rights in Guelmim (a town near the desert) we heard a Hassanist woman poet read an anonymous traditional love poem. In this strict Berber sect which is loyal to the king and old customs, it is still forbidden for women to write about men in terms of love or sexual relationship. Afterwards I spoke about how vital it is that the voices of women and children are heard in the multicultural space created by war. Stressing the importance of using empathy rather than extremist rhetoric to try to affect change, I read my poem \u2018August 2006, Hamid\u2019<\/p>\n

AUGUST 2006, HAMID[3]<\/sup><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Basra, ancient city of parks smelling of flowers
\nand spices, renowned place of coffee-houses,
\nmosques and the intricate facades of buildings
\nof old Ashur: everywhere water mirrors sky –
\nkingfishers and bee-eaters dart in the shadows
\nof date palms. Sinbad\u2019s city is now populated
\nby children[4]<\/sup><\/a>, all the young men dead in the wars.
\nHamid, beautiful child, rises at dawn to collect
\nscrap metal, building a new life from Pepsi cans:
\nhe says – peace is the greatest treasure we could ask for.<\/em><\/p>\n

Later at the Guelmim Cultural Centre I read \u2018Mother\u2019, a poem inspired by the discovery that on January 11 1917, when my father\u2019s leg was shattered by a bullet at Kut al-Amara and led to his being invalided out of the war, his friend, Captain Evans, was killed. This poem is in the imagined voice of Captain Evans\u2019 mother.<\/p>\n

MOTHER<\/p>\n

Childbirth was like being excavated:
\nmy belly rose on whalebone wings,
\npain soared about me like a bloodied angel:<\/p>\n

then you were born<\/p>\n

I saw you with my own eyes
\nI held you day and night:
\nyou lay in my arms, a glowing pupa.<\/p>\n

At Kut-al-Amara you were back-lit,
\nthe moon pointed you out against the ridge –
\nwhen Turkish gunners stopped your spade<\/p>\n

you fell slowly, shedding iridescence<\/p>\n

each night in dreams I fail to catch you –
\nyour bones the fragile quills of rescued fledglings
\nyou placed by the stove for warmth<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Both poems are from Taking Mesopotamia <\/em>(Oxford Poets\/ Carcanet 2014) www.carcanetpress\/takingmesopotamia<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Mahmoud Dawish, Palestinian poet, 1941-2008
\n[2]<\/a> Ali Ahmad Said Esber, also known by the pen name Adonis or Adunis, is a Syrian poet, essayist and translator. He has written more than twenty books and volumes of poetry in the Arabic language as well as translated several works from French.
\n[3]<\/a> From an account in the Observer, <\/em>2009).<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance\u2019[1]: reflections on a voyage po\u00e9tique. By Jenny Lewis, 31 March 2015 For every physical journey there is an accompanying internal, psychological and spiritual one and my trip to the Third Rencontre Internationale de la Po\u00e9sie in Morocco this month was no exception. The fact that the festival […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-publications","category-tutor_news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p40Qhf-c5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1346,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=1346","url_meta":{"origin":749,"position":0},"title":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis reads at Armistice Day Requiem and Poetry Reading, Albion Beatnik Bookshop, Oxford, 11 Nov 2017","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"October 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis\u00a0will be reading with Adnan al-Sayegh, Peter J. King, Jude Cowan Montague, Chinta Kallie, Ruba Abughaida and Jenyth Worsley at the Armistice Day Requiem and Poetry Reading at the Albion Beatnik Bookstore, from 7.30-9.30pm on Saturday 11 November to remember all victims of war, spoken in several\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Seeds-of-war-event-186x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1858,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=1858","url_meta":{"origin":749,"position":1},"title":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis’ collaboration “Let Me Tell You What I Saw” published by Seren Books","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"September 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Let Me Tell You What I Saw ,a collaboration by Adnan Al-Sayegh, MSt tutor Jenny Lewis, and Ruba Abughaida is to be published by Seren Books From the announcement: Let Me Tell You What I Saw is the first ever publication as a dual-language (English\/Arabic) text of substantial extracts from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.serenbooks.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/product_page_book_view\/public\/books\/front-cover\/Let%20Me%20Tell%20You....jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1605,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=1605","url_meta":{"origin":749,"position":2},"title":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis at the Stanford University Centre, Oxford, 20th Nov 2018","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"November 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis will be at the Stanford University Centre in Oxford on the 20th of November 2018, 5 - 7 pm. From the announcement: Translating Trauma: Creative Responses to War and Conflict British poet Jenny Lewis and Iraqi poet Adnan al-Sayegh discuss their approaches to writing and translating\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.conted.ox.ac.uk\/courses\/infosysfiles\/_Tutors\/Lewis_Jenny_1471.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":826,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=826","url_meta":{"origin":749,"position":3},"title":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis on POESI-O-RAMA Festival, Malm\u00f6, Sweden, 2015","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"September 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2018The music says freedom exists\u2026\u2019 MSt Tutor, Jenny Lewis, at the POESI-O-RAMA Festival, Malm\u00f6, Sweden, 11-13 September, 2015 I was honoured to be asked to read with Adnan al-Sayegh at the POESI-O-RAMA Festival in Malmo, Sweden on 12 September 2015. Invited by Hassan Hadi, Director of the Modern Art Theatre\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "MSt News"","block_context":{"text":"MSt News","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"Picture clipping","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Picture-clipping-300x199.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2018,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=2018","url_meta":{"origin":749,"position":4},"title":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis commissioned to write and film a poem for the COP26 Climate Conference","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"October 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Jenny Lewis and frequent collaborator Adnan al Sayegh have been commissioned to write and film a poem for the COP26 Climate Conference. They will be performing it live in London on Saturday 10 October, and the film will be shown in Glasgow at the conference itself. More details here.","rel":"","context":"In "MSt News"","block_context":{"text":"MSt News","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":893,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?p=893","url_meta":{"origin":749,"position":5},"title":"MSt tutor Jenny Lewis in “Now and Then: Poetry for Peace”, Ashmolean Museum, 17th October 2015","author":"MSt Creative Writing","date":"October 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Now and Then: Poetry for Peace Saturday 17 October, 11am\u201312pm Free, no booking required. MSt tutor Jenny Lewis and Adnan al Sayegh will be reading in the Near Eastern Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford \"in celebration in one of the world's greatest civilizations and to support a return\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Picture clipping","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/Picture-clipping-300x199.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.conted.ox.ac.uk\/mstcw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}