Refaat Alareer and his poems

  If I Must Die 

  by : Refaat Alareer

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself–
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale

 

 

Over The Wall

   by : Refaat Alareer

 

‘There,’ points Grandma.

She had a tent that was a home.

She had a goat and a camel.

She had a rake and a fork and a trowel.

She had a machete and a watering can.

She had a grove and two hundred plants.

She had a child and another one and another one.

***

‘There,’ she insists.

I could not see

Because of the wall.

I could not hear

Because of the noise.

I could not smell

Because of the powder.

***

But I can always tell,

I am sure of Grandma

Who always was

And is still

And will always be.

She smells like soil.

And smiles like soil.

And blinks like soil

When touched by rain.

***

She has a house that is a tent

She has a key

And a memory.

She has a hope

And two hundred offspring.

***

Grandma is here

But lives there.

 

Freshly Baked Souls

 by : Refaat Alareer

 

As fire balls and sparks descend,

And the little ones rejoice,

Look up, and cheer, unable to comprehend,

Sooner than they expect

They will be blown

(It’s none of their wishes

If only they had known!)

And more freshly grilled balls of flesh ascend.

And fall on full dishes

And fill the boxes.

And the hollow minds.

The full bellies.

They look down. Rejoice. Cheer.

“Freshly baked!”

“Freshly baked!”

“Who wants freshly baked flesh for breakfast?”

“Throw me a piece. “

“Throw me  four.

I have just eaten but crave for more.”

***

The hearts are not hearts.

The eyes can’t see

There are no eyes there

The bellies craving for more

A house destroyed except for the door

The family, all of them, gone

Save a photo album

That has to be buried with them

No one was left to cherish the memories

No one.

Except freshly baked souls in bellies.

Except for a poem .

 

 

What is War Poetry?

                                           
                                                 Characteristics of War Poetry

 

* The war poetry is introduced by the poets who have experienced the terror of War World I and  

   World War World II. War poetry is considered as contemporary poetry which is authentic,  

   original,revolutionary and free from the classical rules. 

*Lesley Jeffries maintains that modern poets were trying with "new material" and "new methods of 
  writing" (Jeffries 1993:10). 


*Dennis Brown attributes the subject of experimentation in modern poetry to the "disorientation"
  induce by the shock of the Great War, among other reasons (Brown 1989:11). 

*Most of the common themes, like the casualties of war and the inevitable deaths, can be found in the
  most well-known poets like Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon.

*Many of them suffered from psychological problems during and after the war due to shell shock or
  the horrible scenes of mutilated bodies and human parts scattered on the battlefield. 

*War poetry captures the physical and emotional features of modern war: the pain, weariness,
  madness, and degradation of human beings under intolerable strain. 


* It attempts to crystallize the moment as it offers images of young soldiers in action. 

*Some poems of this era highlight the case in which a soldier survives war physically but remains
  obsessed with its bitter horrifying memories which drive him crazy. 

* Samuel Hynes expresses the way the poets were affected by the war.

                                                                Peace, Love & Respect

Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

         This poem was actually my first war-based poem that I read. I like it a lot because it has such strong poetic values in it. It is making this poem memorable. I actually read it 1 years ago but I still remembered this poem and it is about. Dulce et Decorum est actually from Latin word and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right."  In other words, it is a wonderful and great honour to fight and die for your country.

 

         “Dulce et Decorum Est” is a lyric poem expressing in stark language the poet's reaction to the horror of war. The source of the quotation is the second ode in Book III of Carmina (Odes) by the ancient Roman writer Quintus Horatius Flaccus, or Horace (65-8 BC). The meter pattern of the poem is iambic pentameter, which consists of five pairs of syllables. The first syllable of each pair is unstressed; the second, stressed.

 

         The first stanza sets the scene, a battlefield with war-weary soldiers on the march. The second stanza centers on the central image of the poem: a gas attack in which one soldier, failing to put on his gas mask in time, dies in agony before the speaker of the poem. The remaining lines present the theme.
.



Drama

                                                                            Drama !!


 



 



 



 

Definition

Pronunciation : /ˈdrɑːmə/

1. It's a play for theatre, radio or television. 

2. It's an exciting, emotional, or unexpected event or circumstance:

Drama is an adaptation and reflection of reality on stage. Drama is also the imitation of life. It has a message to communicate to the audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 “a plot must have, a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the events of the plot must causally relate to one another as being either necessary or probable.”
(Poetics 23.1459a.) - Aristotle

My own definition of drama :

I defined it as an acting of play for theatre, radio or television that have its genre, theme and style following the elements of drama (introduction, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution.)



Poetry...

   Poetry

 

 

 

Definition :

 

po·et·ry

noun \ˈpō-ə-trē, -i-trē also pȯ(-)i-trē\

i. the writings of a poet : poems

ii. something that is very beautiful or graceful

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary (2013), poetry is defined as productions of a poet, in metrical writing (verse) or writings that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm. The end product of a poetry frequently embodies the beauty of expression alongside its deep intrinsic meaning. 

 

     Types :    o   Ballad

o   Concrete

o   Confessionals

o   Free Verse

o   Elegies (mourning and lamenting)

o   Epic

o   Epigram

o   Haiku (very short form of Japanese poetry)

o   Sonnet (Shakesperean and Latin)

o   Villanelle ( nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain)

 

 

My definition of poem :

 

 Poem is the way you express something such as love, hate, longing and other feelings that related to you and others  using the elements of poem such as stanza, rhythm, meter and others.

 

 





Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.  ~Plato, Ion