No modern Arab writer transcends generations like Nizar Qabbani.
The late Syrian poet’s words spoke to everyone from teenagers in puppy love to adults nursing a broken heart to exiled patriots with a nostalgia for life back home.
If you haven’t read one of Nizar’s poems, then you must have heard an Arab musician sing them. His verses were adapted to music by the region’s artistic legends: from Abdel Halim Hafez to Kadhem al Saher to Majida el Roumi and even Fairouz and Um Kulthoum.
Here are some great lessons on life’s many themes by the iconic poet Nizar Qabbani.
1. On female muses
“I’ve read the book of femininity letter after letter… but I’m still in the dark of what goes on inside a woman’s head.”
2. On what defines love
“And you ask me what love is? Love means that you are enough for me… And that I’ll never get enough of you”
3. On a love of universal proportions
“Oh god, my heart is not enough anymore, because the one I love equals the whole world… so grant my chest a bigger heart that can fit the whole world”
4. On the disappointments of modernity
“Our shouting is louder than our actions… Our swords are taller than us… This is our tragedy… In short… We wear the cape of civilization… But our souls live in the stone age.”
5. On the plight of memory
من أخطر أمراض القلب... الذاكرة القوية
“The most dangerous heart disease… Is strong memory”
6. On silence
“If I stand before your beauty silently, then silence in the face of beauty is beautiful… Our words in love will kill our love, for letters die when they are spoken.”
7. On returning home
“I return to the womb in which I was formed . . . To the first book I read . . . To the first woman who taught me the geography of love . . . And the geography of women.”
8. On the intimacy of Damascus
“The Damascene House is beyond the architectural text. The design of our homes is based on an emotional foundation... For every house leans on the hip of another... And every balcony extends its hand to another facing it. Damascene houses are loving houses . . . They greet one another in the morning . . . And exchange visits secretly at night.”
9. On confronting defeat
“We are thick skinned people with empty souls. We spend our days
playing dice, chess, or sleeping - and we say we are the best people that ever came to mankind?”
10. On the wounds of love
لاتحب بعمق حتى تتأكد>بأن الطرف الآخر يحبك بنفس العمق فعمق حبك اليوم هو عمق جرحك غدا
“Don't love deeply, till you make sure that the other part loves you with the same depth, because the depth of your love today, is the depth of your wound tomorrow.”