Creatives shine at the “Poetry Seas Forum”

The sixth session of the Nador Poetry Seas Forum, which was held on the city’s beach, was distinguished by the brilliance of Moroccan poets.

The Buhur Al-Shi’r Forum witnessed a series of open poetic and artistic events and meetings, which provided an opportunity to meet directly with poetry and poets.

The activities of the poetry seas were launched by honoring the poet Said Aqoudad, one of the most important Moroccan poetic voices writing in the Amazigh language, in Nador, the capital of Amazigh poetry in the eastern part of the Kingdom of Morocco.

Aqoudad received the shield of honor, announcing his “pride in this initiative that belongs to the culture of recognizing the experience of a Moroccan poet, as well as recognizing the Amazigh poetic experience in Morocco, and the position of the Amazigh blog within the Moroccan poetry anthology open to languages ​​and cultures.”

“Bohor Al-Shi’r” witnessed a night of Amazigh poetry and another of Arabic poetry, which was initiated by the poet Jamal Azraghid by signing his collection “As If I Returned from War”, published by Bayt Al-Shi’r, from which the poet read: “I have nothing on this earth/ except feet resting on the side of the steps/ in the dead of night: picking up the whisper of existence. I have nothing on this earth/ except breaths that inhabit me/ when I lower my feet to the void… I have nothing on this earth/ except a name that points to a cloud/ that surrounds my dewy voice/ whenever I separate it from my path/ it treats me with a modest smile/ and walks away/ following the wind.”

As for the poet Imad Oufkir, who won the Qawafi Award in its last session in the Emirate of Sharjah, he concluded his participation by repeating: “In the beginning, you were, and I was the ink and the paper / Flirting with the soul, the eyes and the character. Like a child, I say to things that you are mine / If it weren’t for possession, that child wouldn’t have spoken. I spent my life free, aware, cautious / And you came, so patience died and burned today. I see you in my eyes, you have never been absent for a second / For love’s source is from your beauty.” All that’s left of my heart is his place/ So, metaphorically, he rose in love and they took off. How can I stop him, when helplessness is suffocating me?/ And the fire of his anguish has left me no breath left.”

From her collection “Whispers of the Last Chapters,” poet Zalfa Ashhaboon read: “I count the days in your absence, he loves me… he doesn’t love me… he loves me. The waiting has reached a million roses and roses. Between the eye’s embrace of the tear, and the glow of longing and the embrace, he loves me and doesn’t miss me. A rose garden is not enough for roses.”

The poet Yassin Baabslam, winner of the last edition of the Sharaka Prize for Arab Creativity, concluded the Arabic Poetry Night by reciting from his winning collection “I Will Sing My Masters”: “Oh eye, deviate from the path of love as you wish/ You must love the daughter of the Amazigh. The one whose fingertips were rubbed with henna/ I wish her fingertips would accept my rubbing! If she comes out in the morning.. in a dress that is not revealing/ And if she appears, then with an unpainted face. Since the sting of her eyelash wounded my liver/ I spend the evening and morning a crowd of Maladighs! I justified my longings for the night.. And it is no wonder/ That the crazy insomnia refuses to justify me.” A tattoo on her forehead still asks about the state of a heart stamped with the tattoo of abandonment.

As for the Amazigh Poetry Night, it was opened by the honored poet Said Aqoudad when he said: “I will write about you, I will write with a thread of light and the pupil of the eye, so that the words may speak, when the ink sleeps in the eyelashes of the eye… Listen to the wind as it speaks, with words you do not know.”

The poet Noura Aarab, author of the collection “The Cry of Silence,” and winner of the National Prize for Amazigh Culture in 2017, participated in the poetry night. The poet recited poems that celebrated freedom, land, hope, and language, through intertextuality with the Amazigh oral poetry corpus, and with various poetic experiences originating from the Rif Mountains.

As for the poet Abdel Rahim Fawzi, who is one of the most important lyrical poets in the region, he chose to depict the states and turmoils of isolation in his first poem, when he sang poetic songs that included:

“I am alone, with nothing but my solitude, amidst the turmoil of the waves, I was swimming in the desert. I am alone, I take blind steps, I seek protection in isolation and absence. And when I meet you, I am struck by the confusion of the bewildered / When you speak, silence increases my waiting… Let me learn from you, as the sun learns from you, how to grow more yellow.”

In the same sanctuary of isolation, the poet Hayat Bouterfas spends her days: “My steps take me in the dimness of dawn, I wander in the Empty Quarter, I search for my shadow to accompany, and we cry together profusely. That shepherd who was sitting under a leafy tree saw me and asked me: Why are you crying? Your tears are precious, O daughter of Nador.”

It is noteworthy that the last day of the Poetry Seas events witnessed an open meeting with the honored poet Said Aqoudad, interviewed by the writer and short story writer Mimoun Harsh, who presented readings of the poet’s experience, to address him with a series of questions that contemplate the most important sources of renewal and the places of poetic beauty in his rich poetic experience, to crown the meeting with honoring the participants in the poetry and plastic arts workshop, as framed by the plastic artist Professor Hafiz Al-Khadiri. The curtain was drawn on the meeting with an artistic celebration held by the Amazigh group “Thamwat”, which sings the poems of the poets of the countryside; foremost among them is the poet of Nador, Abdel Rahim Fawzi.