Ali gives the reader the impression that there must be value in letting go of hatred and acknowledging the better emotions, such as those which are present in the former work by Ali, even if such purity is not the end to our means it is infinitely valuable nonetheless.
Eliaz Cohen writes of the universal historical struggles of power and control in the Middle East in Snow. (Cohen NP) Though Snow is a very brief poem, its conveyance of meaning is paramount to the history of the peoples of the Middle East. Cohen demonstrates that the world changing hands around the people makes it possible to see only the blood upon the snow rather than the beauty of the crisp white snow itself. "Snow on bleeding Jerusalem//as though bandaging her wounds//all rests in tranquility now//filling the cracks of yearning in the Wall//children in your streets Jerusalem//the children of Isaac and Ishmael//are staging white wars//(and their blows are soft)//even the pigeons are hurrying today//cooing because they have found new footprints//on the way leading up to the Gate of Mercy." The scene is one of domestic bliss, children playing in a blanket of snow, seeking solace in the excitement of a new day, elders likely looking upon the scene with joy and hope, even in the face of bleeding Jerusalem where conflict over the territories mentioned in the work is heated and destructive. The joy of expression is so clear within this work it is enough to make the reader wonder if the occupants of the work do not sit around daily wondering what will become of them, what will become of these hopeful children living in streets of fear and destruction, daily, behind barriers that allow them no solace of reconciliation or even understanding.
Middle Eastern poets are rich in insight and their poetry is rich in understanding and expression. They seek to meld the ideals of the standards of their culture and the effects of the conflict upon the individual man and woman living within and trying in the self to see the beuty in the mundane while seeing and feeling the conflict that surrounds and guides their lives, regardless of their real involvement in it. They write of the joy of expression of poetry, the power of its derision...
No topic is off limits, nore should it be and no language is devoid of the subtle and overt meanings associated with human trials, cultural, economic, political and social. Through the works of just this short list of classic Middle Eastern poets one can see the exemplification of writing the political through the view of the people, who have so little control but whose lives are frequently assaulted by its results. Many Middle Eastern authors feel a fierce obligation to write not only about the joy and struggle of writing poetry but also the trails and conflicts of their nations and the people whom they have known and whom they have imagined to have been deeply effected by all. In the works of Ozkan Mert (Turkish) Taha Muhammad Ali (Palastinian) Eliaz Cohhen (Israeli) and Aharon Shabtai (Israeli) one can locate the human drama of living in strife as well as the pleasure of poetic expression, without any real difficulty and with a great sense of wonder that is expressed through poetry and the wondrous human mind.
Works Cited
Ali, Taha Muhammad "Abd el-Hadi Fights a Superpower" & After We Die" Radical Teacher, Spring 2005 72-15 Retrieved November 10, 2007 from Academic Search Premier.
Cohen, Eliaz Snow Retrieved Novemeber 10, 2007 at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_ecohen.html
Cooke, Miriam, and Roshni Rustomji-Kerns, eds. Blood into Ink: South Asian and Middle Eastern Women Write War. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.
Karlinsky, Nahum. "California Dreaming: Adapting the "California Model" to the Jewish Citrus Industry in Palestine, 1917-1939." Israel Studies 5.1 (2000): 24-40.
Ozkan Mert Whose on the Side of Poetry Retrieved Novemeber 10, 2007 at http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~sibel/poetry/poems/ozkan_mert/index.html
Shabtai, Aharon "Our Land" Radical Teacher, Spring 2005 72-15, Retrieved November 10, 2007 from Academic Search Premier.
Taylor, John. "Contemporary Israeli Poetry." The Antioch Review Spring 2007: 384.
