Adil Babikir - Modern Sudanese Poetry: An Anthology

This is an unprecedented accomplishment not only in translation of modern Sudanese poetry but also scholarship on its history, evolution, poetics, and aesthetics.... This book is a great addition to the library of Arab poetry in translation that should appeal to scholars and the general public with interest in Arabic poetry. Salah M. Hassan, Goldwin Smith Professor of Africana Studies and History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University Sudanese literature has long been a significant contributor to Arabic and world letters and culture. The thoughtful, provocative introduction in this anthology, combined with the clear-eyed lyric transformation of the poems into English, honor poetry everywhere. Just as in Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, or the United States, the weight of collective history and ethnic and linguistic diversity emerges to forge these Sudanese poems into art, both bound to and liberated from the national frame.

Details matter, nuance is essential. And yet the story of Sudanese poetry is the story of poetry all over the world. From blaze to breeze, this is a beautiful book. Fady Joudah, Palestinian American physician and author of the poetry collection The Earth in the Attic Series editor: Kwame Dawes Editorial Board Chris Abani, Northwestern University Gabeba Baderoon, Pennsylvania State University Kwame Dawes, University of NebraskaLincoln Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, University of the Witwatersrand Bernardine Evaristo, Brunel University London Aracelis Girmay John Keene, Rutgers University Matthew Shenoda, Rhode Island School of Design Advisory Board Laura Sillerman Glenna Luschei Sulaiman Adebowale Elizabeth Alexander

Translated and edited by Adil Babikir Foreword by Matthew Shenoda, supervising editor University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln 2019 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All poems published with permission. Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover artwork by Ibrahim El-Salahi 2019 Artists Rights Society ( ARS ), New York / DACS , London. Photo Tate, London 2019.

All rights reserved The African Poetry Book Series has been made possible through the generosity of philanthropists Laura and Robert F. X. Sillerman, whose contributions have facilitated the establishment and operation of the African Poetry Book Fund. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Babikir, Adil, editor, translator. | Shenoda, Matthew, writer of foreword. Title: Modern Sudanese poetry: an anthology / translated and edited by Adil Babikir; foreword by Matthew Shenoda, supervising editor.

Other titles: African poetry book series. Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. | Series: African poetry book series | Includes bibliographical references. | In English; translated from the Arabic. Identifiers: LCCN 2019001566 ISBN 9781496215635 (pbk.: alk. | Arabic poetry20th centuryTranslations into English. | Arabic poetry20th centuryTranslations into English.

Classification: LCC PJ 8314.5. E 5 M 63 2019 | DDC 892.716dc23. LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001566 The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Matthew Shenoda In this seminal collection of modern Sudanese poems, translator Adil Babikir has introduced English-language readers to a significant gathering of largely unknown works in English. Translated from Arabic, these poems capture the often tumultuous and complex histories and cultural intersections in Sudans modern period. Anchored in the mid- to late twentieth century, these poems give significant insight into the rise of Sudanese nationalism and the period of independence.

Beautifully contextualized in an introduction by Babikir, this anthology traces the internal cultural negotiations of the Afro-Arab and Jungle and Desert schools that have defined and shaped modern Sudanese identity and helped define the emergence of a new poetic school in Sudan. In poems often steeped in a lyrical ornateness and sensual engagement with language, we are reminded of the intersections of history, place, and culture throughout this collection. Linguistic embellishments paint landscapes both internal and external, and the poems gathered here make space for an important articulation of Africas expansive story through a country that sits at the border of myriad multiplicities. So often these poems navigate the complexities of nationhood, place, and identity, poems like those of Mohyiddin Faris, where he writes: The peels of words sing out; the sun confiscates them, but they confiscate her golden howdah, and braid her hair into a guillotine, to shear off the necks of the old times, and open up our locked doors. (The Horse and the Wind) But the poems gathered here are far from singularly political. With verse that engages the depths of love, longing, religion, and culture, there is a consistent sense of ripeness that carries throughout.

Fresh in their belief that the communal heart is the core of the human experience, these poems often remind us of just how supple and fluid language can be. Muhammad el-Mahdi el-Majzoub shows us the intimacy of these communal moments in his poem Wedding Parade where he writes: Tonight, mother of the bride, we brought you our cream of the cream; palm fronds in our hands, a good omen for green times to come. Virgins as soft as young plants, nursed in the shades for blooming time. Rapture flying out of the drums, like flocks of birds taking to the sky, as the wedding parade gaily slid along the Nile bank. We would catch rare glimpses of unguarded beauty, yet we never go beyond the limits. Perhaps more than any other poetic tradition hailing from the African continent, the Sudanese poets gathered here grapple with an African/Arab confluence in ways that show a rich and layered entanglement that expands our sense of binary identities and helps create a more nuanced and textured sense of north and south.

Whats perhaps most engaging about these poems is that nothing is taken for granted; the expressive energy found in each of these poems engages a kind of reaching, a desire for a deeper sense of understanding ones self in the context of a specific moment and place. This is the hallmark of all great poetry, a mirror that does not simply reflect our own image back to us but rather allows us to see ourselves anew.

This anthology cannot claim to be representative of all the poetry currents in Sudan. It is only meant to offer a glimpse of the poetry scene in post-independence Sudan, a scene about which little is known in the English-speaking world. I do hope this modest attempt encourages others to bring to light some of the hidden treasures of Sudanese poetry. Many friends contributed to this work.

I am particularly indebted to Lemya Shammat, who patiently reviewed a good part of the selected poems and contributed invaluable comments. In writing the introduction to this anthology, I benefited from her comprehensive review of Abdel Goddous al-Khatims book Reflections on Sudanese Culture, 2012 (Abdel Karim Mirghani Cultural Centre). The introduction also benefited from invaluable notes shared by Aalim Abbas, and from Kamal Elgizoulis excellent paper The Hole in the House Roof. I am thankful to Dr. Al Haj Salim Mustapha, who lent me some invaluable references and opened my eyes to many shortcomings. I am grateful to Osman al-Jaali, Samia Kergwel, Mustapha Adam, Ahmed al-Nimeiri, Bushra el-Fadil, Murtada al-Ghali, Abdel Monem Agab al-Faya, Abdel Azim Abdel Raheem, Hamza Babikir, and Nizar al-Imamamong othersfor their encouraging words and insightful comments.

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