Literary CornerThe Full Poetic Collection (2/4) [Archives:2005/906/Culture]

Abu Al-Kalmah Al-Tayyibah
Author: Ali Abdul-Rahman Jahhaf

Language: Arabic

Publisher: Ministry of Culture and Tourism

Year Published: 2004

Last week the importance of Humainy poetry was discussed with respect to literature in Yemen and it is widely circulated and enjoyed by both the educated and the normal farming and working people of Yemen. It has been able to establish a well refined structure and it has its controls as well, so that only gifted people can truly produce fine prose in local Yemeni dialect. Perhaps nowhere in Yemen has Humainy or local prose reached a high level of refinement than in Sana'a, with its distinct dialect and refined cultural flair (with the other cities in the center-north taking up somewhat from where Sana'a left off; i.e. Dhamar, Ibb, Sa'ada, Hajjah). Tehama has its own linguistic character as well, where the rich Arabic of the classical and Bedouin genre blend in somewhat causally with some of the inherited attributes of the ancient Himyarite language.

The author admits to the writer of the preface of the first group of poems that he hardly keeps organized copies of his poems and that the only major source one can rely on his brother Khalid Abdul-Rahman Jahhaf, or else those who have memorized his poems or keep copies of them as they are printed. He says most of the time he juts them down on any piece of paper that he can find, including cigarette packaging, bills, etc. that are near him as the idea of a poem comes to his mind.

The first group of poems is called “The Screw pine Flower of February””