Khaberni - Dr. Saleh Al-Shadi wrote:
Jordan is a proud land that does not need anyone to speak for it, for its olive trees, the rocks of Petra, and the hills of Moab tell its history through the sweetest narratives. However, there is another story being told, a story of its men who transformed the pulse of the desert into a rhythm, and the whispers of the nights into poems. Here I am, a simple poet who lived among them, and as a friend who drank from the same cup, I raise my voice in defense of their poetic heritage that some still fail to comprehend the depth of.
I have lived with them, and I’ve mingled with them in their settling and their travels. I’ve seen how a poem is born within them like dawn breaks, clear and unforced. I never heard any of them strain for a meter or search for an exotic word to boast. To them, poetry is still like breath; it comes out smoothly, because the life they portray was sufficient to create beauty. Their love poems were like the morning dew on thyme leaves, pure and spontaneous, telling the story of the heart without triviality. Their poems of pride were like the thunder in the mountains, strong and resonant across the horizons, but only praising true bravery and inherited generosity.
The richness of their language is a secret from their desert. They don’t speak in abstract Classical Arabic, but they bring forth the authentic Arabic word in its Bedouin attire, strong and evocative, as if carved by the winds over the years. They use precise expressions that describe a situation or a scene with fewest and deepest words, hence, you see no filler or distortion in their poetry.
Therefore, when I hear someone diminishing the level of their poetry, I feel both anger and pain. How is poetry measured? Is it by the frequency of media appearances or by the sincerity of the experience and the depth of impact? These poets have preserved the geography of Jordan and its values before modern maps reached them. They are the chronicles of the desert, the preservers of the tongue, and the guardians of beauty in its simplest and most complete forms.
Let me be clear: I don’t defend them just because they are my friends, but because I believe they represent the true face of creativity, one that doesn’t need noise to be heard. Their creativity is not always read in the newspapers, but it is preserved in hearts, and sung about in gatherings. It is the poetry of life, with all its joy and harshness, love and separation, pride and wisdom.
They are, with their composure and the purity of their words, the real Jordan. They are the voice of the land that never ends, and this testimony is not a courtesy, but a debt of integrity owed to the bearers of the message of genuine poetry in an era that almost forgot its authenticity.
