Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture | In the company of poetry

Hours after the funeral of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish Arab and Egyptian poets gathered at the Al-Azhar Park's Al-Genena Theatre to commemorate the achievements of the poet, writes Rania Khallaf

The commemoration began with a slide show of personal pictures of Darwish accompanied by the voice of Marcel Khalifa whose performance of "Between Ritta and my Eyes a Rifle" filled the air with peculiar melancholy. The images included photographs of Darwish with Egyptian poet Abdel-Rahman El-Abnoudy, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and others.

A huge poster of the poet hanging in front of the stage swayed in the night breeze, a moving picture evoking the illusion that Darwish himself was at the gathering. Basma El-Hossainy, director of Al-Mawred El-Thaqafy, the event's organizer, told the audience that Darwish's sudden departure "came as a shock to all Arab intellectuals and readers, to the extent that some still believe it is just a rumour".

"We Palestinians, feel the greatest pain. Within five years we have lost two of our most important national symbols, Arafat and Darwish, in the shadow of the continuing loss of our country," said Palestinian political activist Hassan Asfour, a close friend of Darwish. "Darwish has departed but has not died. He will remain with us, with every Arab citizen who longs for liberation and dignity."

Young Palestinian singer Yasser Hegazi then presented a unique recital, chanting Darwish's poems to the accompaniment of the Oud, though the prevalent mood in the Roman auditorium was one of reverential silence so that it became like attending a funeral ceremony. The sadness was compounded by the screening of a documentary film, Passers in a passing speech, a rare recording of an event held in Jordan at which Mahmoud Darwish read his poems to an audience of thousands. It captured the intimacy between the poet and his audience that had won Darwish such popularity across the Arab world. Reinvoked, the audience felt sadder.

El-Hossainy's affectionate reading of "A Soft Rain in a Remote Autumn" and poet Fatma Qandil's reading of "The Trace of the Butterfly" helped alleviate the tension. Poets Amin Haddad, Helmy Salem and the Lebanese Lina El-Teeby also read extracts from the most popular of Darwish's poems, "An Identity Card" and "Gedariya". Palestinian singer Abeer Sansour then performed setti ngs of the poems "My Mother's Bread", "Ritta", "Passport"and I Love You More after which another documentary, The Mask has been dropped, was screened.

Lebanese director Roget Assaf sent a letter "To Mahmoud Darwish-Address Palestine," to the event. It was read out. "You have departed and won over death, as you said," wrote Assaf, "but we, the living ones, are still suffering from the siege and blinded by the wall, cannot even hear the voice of the martyr, or any other true news. However, none of us will be lonely in the company of your poems."