April 22

Nice Poets. Rude Poets: Satire and Obscenity in Arabic Political Poetry

Asmahan Sallah, associate professor, Literature, Writing, and Film

Traditional Arabic wisdom states that “poetry is Arabs’ chronicle.” And in modern history, political poetry became a tool for revolutions in the Arab world. This presentation introduces American audience to contemporary Arabic political poetry deployed as criticism of dictators. How did “conservative” Arab audience receive political poetry in which scathing satire and obscene words were widely used? How were poets able to publicly read poetry in countries whose policy makers, dictators, and secret intelligence apparatus were attacked? Excerpts from works by two representative poets will be explored to shed light on the corrective force of “bad” poetry.