Shi'r

For the 19th-century rabbinic scholar, see Solomon Judah Loeb Rapoport.

Shi'r
CategoriesPoetry literary magazine
Frequency
  • Quarterly
  • Monthly
Founder
Founded1957
First issueJanuary 1957
Final issueAutumn 1970
CountryLebanon
Based inBeirut
LanguageArabic

Shi'r (Arabic: مجلة شعر, lit. 'Poetry') was an avant-garde and modernist monthly literary magazine with a special reference to poetry. The magazine was published in Beirut, Lebanon, between 1957 and 1970 with a three-year interruption. The founders were two leading literary figures: Yusuf al-Khal and Adunis. It was named after Harriet Monroe’s Chicago-based magazine, Poetry.[1]

History and profile[edit]

Shi'r was started in Beirut in 1957, and the first issue appeared in January.[2][3] Its founders were Yusuf al-Khal, Adunis[4] and Unsi Al Hajj.[5] The magazine was significantly affected from Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi's the Apollo Poet Society founded in Cairo, Egypt, in 1932.[6] Salma Khadra Jayyusi argues that Shi'r is, in fact, the successor of Apollo which was the publication of this society.[7] It was started as a quarterly,[1] but later its frequency was switched to monthly.[4]

The goal of Shi'r which was an avant-garde journal was to present a non-political version of poetry.[4] This version of poetry is called Al Shi'r al Hurr (Arabic: Free Poetry)[7] which refers to prose poetry.[8] It also attempted to revive Arabic poetry and to reshape it away from formalism.[9] The magazine adopted a modernist approach towards poetry.[1] Its another aim was to encourage the Afro-Asian solidarity and nonalignment which had been stated in the Bandung Conference in 1955.[10] The magazine organized poetry meetings each Thursday at the Plaza Hotel in Hamra Street.[11] It frequently published translations of the Vietnamese literary work.[12]

Although both were avant-garde publications and supported free verse movement, Al Adab, a literary magazine established in Beirut in 1953, was the main adversary of Shi'r.[13] Because the contributors of Shi'r opposed the movement of committed literature (al-adab al-multazim in Arabic), a dominant approach in the 1950s and 1960s in the Arab world which was also supported by Al Adab.[4] The Al Adab contributors claimed that Shi'r had detrimental effects on the traditional heritage of Arabic literature.[9]

Shi'r was banned in some countries due to its alleged support for the cultural war against Arab nationalism and its being funded by the CIA and French intelligence.[4] It was temporarily shut down in 1964 and was restarted in Spring 1967.[2][3] In the second phase al-Khal also served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine of which the scope was expanded to cover other literary subjects in addition to poetry.[2] Shi'r ceased publication in Autumn 1970[2] after publishing forty-four issues.[1]

Editors and contributors[edit]

Al-Khal was the editor-in-chief of Shi'r.[2] Adunis served in different positions: at the beginning he was the editor and from 1958 he began to function as the secretary of the editorial board.[2] He became the managing editor in 1961 and co-owner and co-editor-in-chief of Shi'r in 1963.[2] However, he left the magazine soon after these roles.[2]

The contributors were part of the Shi'r school, and the magazine was an organ of this movement.[6] They were also related to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.[14] The latter group included Adunis, Kamal Kheir Beik and Muhammad Maghut.[14]

Sargon Boulus, an Iraq-born Assyrian poet, started his career in Shi'r in 1961.[15] Fouad Refka, and Jabra Ibrahim Jabra were among the contributors of the magazine.[9] Palestinian poet Tawfiq Sayigh also published a poem in the magazine in 1961.[16]

Studies on Shi'r[edit]

Kamal Kheir Beik analyzed Shi'r in his PhD thesis which was completed at the University of Geneva in 1972.[17] Another comprehensive study on Shi'r is a book by Dounia Badini published in 2009.[1]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e Robyn Creswell (2019). City of Beginnings. Poetic Modernism in Beirut. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 117, 204. ISBN 9780691185149.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Ed de Moor (2000). "The rise and fall of the review "shi'r"". Quaderni di Studi Arabi. 18: 85–96. JSTOR 25802897.
  3. ^ a b Basilius Bawardi (November 2019). The Magazine Shi'r and the Poetics of Modern Arabic Poetry (Book summary). Peter Lang.
  4. ^ a b c d e Mark D. Luce (2017). "Shi'r". Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. doi:10.4324/9781135000356-REM1626-1. ISBN 9781135000356.
  5. ^ Jens Hanssen; Hicham Safieddine (Spring 2016). "Lebanon's al-Akhbar and Radical Press Culture: Toward an Intellectual History of the Contemporary Arab Left". The Arab Studies Journal. 24 (1): 196. JSTOR 44746852.
  6. ^ a b John Haywood (1978). "Book review". Die Welt des Islams. 18 (3–4): 236. JSTOR 1570475.
  7. ^ a b Salma Khadra Jayyusi (1977). Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 569, 602. ISBN 978-90-04-04920-8.
  8. ^ S. Moreh (July 1968). "Poetry in Prose (al-Shi'r al-Manthūr) in Modern Arabic Literature". Middle Eastern studies. 4 (4): 353. doi:10.1080/00263206808700109. JSTOR 4282260.
  9. ^ a b c Mirene Arsanioos (1 November 2011). "Comparative Notes on the Cultural Magazine in Lebanon". Ibraaz. No. 2. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  10. ^ Monica Popescu (2020). At Penpoint. African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War. Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press. p. 48. doi:10.1515/9781478012153. ISBN 978-1-4780-0940-5. S2CID 241238726.
  11. ^ Fawwaz Traboulsi (2012). "From Social Crisis to Civil War (1968–1975)". A History of Modern Lebanon (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press. p. 179. doi:10.2307/j.ctt183p4f5.16. ISBN 9780745332741. JSTOR j.ctt183p4f5.16.
  12. ^ Rebecca C. Johnson (2021). "Cross-Revolutionary Reading: Visions of Vietnam in the Transnational Arab Avant-Garde". Comparative Literature. 73 (3): 361. doi:10.1215/00104124-8993990.
  13. ^ Yvonne Albers (26 July 2018). "Start, stop, begin again. The journal 'Mawaqif' and Arab intellectual positions since 1968". Eurozine. Archived from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  14. ^ a b Carl C. Yonker (2021). The Rise and Fall of Greater Syria A Political History of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter. p. 250. doi:10.1515/9783110729092-005. ISBN 9783110729092. S2CID 242711638.
  15. ^ Peter Clark (18 January 2008). "Obituary: Sargon Boulus: Iraqi poet who joined the Beat generation". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  16. ^ Maureen O’Rourke (2009). The Experience of Exile in Modern Arab Poetry (PhD thesis). University of London. p. 169. doi:10.25501/SOAS.00028768.
  17. ^ Salma Harland (3 March 2021). "Two Poems by Kamal Kheir Beik". ArabLit Quarterly.
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