“Do Not Tell the Star”, is the fifth poetic achievement in the career of the poet “Ahmed Al-Shalafi”, and it was recently published by “Book Addresses” in 30 texts, varied in its templates, purposes and directions, from the biography of birth and monologue of the self, to the homeland and the beloved.
Ahmed Al-Shalafi’s poetic experience dates back to before the release of his first book, “The Transformations of the Boy and the Evening” in 2001, when he began writing the vertical poem (lyric – chant) long before that; Then came the docking phase of the poem Altifihah, and free poetry.
Al-Shalafi began his creative writing and poetic activity in Taiz in the nineties through Al-Jumhuriya newspaper, then Al-Jumhuriya Al-cultural newspaper.
And for the distinction of his poetic experience, he was awarded the President of the Republic Award (equally) in 2003, and he continued his poetic productions with a second edition entitled “Another wound that resembles me” in 2004; Although Al-Shalafi was born and raised as a poet, the media – press and television – managed to seduce him, dragging him little by little to finally fall into his clutches; Where he was initially involved as a presenter of a cultural, intellectual, artistic and dialogue program on Yemeni television.
Since mid-2004, he withdrew from the creative poetic scene completely, and became involved as a journalist in Al-Jazeera, only to be known as a journalist and writer. For more than 10 years, Al-Shalafi remained outside the poem, but the poet inside him kept chasing him, it seems, and chasing him in his dreams, illusions and wakefulness, until he forced him to return to his template and framework in 2016, when his two previous collections were reconciled, along with a new, third collection. And he included this in one book he called “The Heedless Hand”, as if this title was intended to express morally the poetic inattention that removed him from his beautiful world for 12 years, and this resurrection was an uprising. After that, the stage of revealing dreams about poetry began again; After only 3 years, he presented his fourth poetic achievement “Moon Follows Me” 2020.
back to hair
“Do Not Tell the Star”, is the fifth poetic achievement in the career of the poet “Ahmed Al-Shalafi”, and it was recently published by “Book Addresses” in 30 texts, varied in its templates, purposes and directions, from the biography of birth and monologue of the self, to the homeland and the beloved.
Along with his dreams and fondness for their revelations, the reader navigates with an interactive “poetic flood” between the titles of “alienation, ecstasy, confusion, nostalgia, boredom, confusion, rejection, playing, reconciliation, and prayer,” so that all these themes intertwine with the patriot, the emotional, the political, and the subjective. , and some of them overlap with Quranic intertextuality, such as the text of “Yusuf”, and with historical intertextuality, such as “I have a desire to pray for the soul of this country”, a text that overlaps with a long text by Yemeni poet Ahmed Al-Awadi in his book “I have a desire to cry”.
The texts were distributed rhythmically and formally between the activating, vertical and free, and the “convergent” and full “activities” took a large distance and area from the total texts, and varied quantitatively between the long poem, the syllable, and the fragment.
As for chronologically, the poet arranged his texts in a non-hierarchical manner, leaving the reader to move freely in the atmosphere of the time spaces of his experience.
The reader will find that the vertical text – albeit the least fortunate in this group – was dealt with by the poet as he deals with the modern text; The reader does not notice any kind of traditionalism in it, but rather an impetus, abundance, beauty, and profound influence. Some readers may find it closer to himself than the rest of the texts, some of which offer open interpretive possibilities, but do not offer him a certain (closed) reading:
I repeat the question behind the question
Poems of your impossible love
And it blocks me from your love
I beat him with a beautiful imagination
I ask you to leave the memories
I grieve for my memories of leaving.
“Don’t tell the star”; It is a title chosen by the poet from an internal text, to address his poetic work, in order to give him his identity. It does not “relate”, does not represent a penetration of the totality of texts, and is not indicative of the substantive body; Where the writer took advantage of the poetic suggestive and semantic structure; To entice the reader to enter the group’s contentment, and to explore its horizons reading.
The title in this group represented a semiotic significance, as it is one of the relationships of poetic work, and the title is not a quantitative indication of the objectivity of the entire content:
“Do not kill Joseph
Throw him in the depths of words
And say to those who cut off their hands:
Some metaphors are a vision
Some visions have wings.
When Joseph grows up
go to prison
stalked by a dear woman
Flirting with the women of the ruling
then forget
forget childhood
wallabier
and Aquarius
Wallisjan
and meanness
He forgets those who shared his soul
out in the city
And who tempted him.
It explains our dreams.
He chooses a grain from each spike
To embroider his father’s face
And he divides the people their joys
Youssef’s heart was born from a dream
From songs and soul
Honest as the color of innocence
Inspirational as his vision.
Jacob’s voice came:
my son
If you see the sky
Don’t tell the star
The wolf will eat you.”