Taj Alsir Alhassan: An innovator In Free Verse

Taj Alsir Alhassan: An innovator In Free Verse

 

KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - The late Sudanese Poet Taj Alsir Alhassan (1930-2013) is one of a number of Sudanese poets who had carved their names deep in the progress of Arab verse. They had made noteworthy additions to the current of Arabic modern poetry and what had come to be known as free verse.

Besides Alhassan, the list of early advocates and writers of free verse includes Mohammad Muftah Alfaytouri, Jaily Abdelrahman and Mohieddin Faris. The four of them had come together in the Cairo religious institute and in the Egyptian Capital’s verse forums and events in the 1950s.

Free verse is defined as an open form of poetry. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical patterning.

In a conversation a month before his departure, Alhassan told this writer that Sudanese and Egyptian verse is as old as the popular Sudanese-Egyptian civilizations, as old as the pre-historic civilization and the civilization of the Sudanese kingdoms of Meroe and Kush and that of the pharos of ancient Egypt to the North.

“Many Sudanese poets had lived in Egypt before us, in particular from the communities of Abre, Sai and Serkumtu of extreme Northern Sudan. I have discovered that some Sudanese poets had lived in Egypt during the rule of Mohammad Ali Pasha,” said Alhassan.

Alhassan had grown up in a Sufi environment in the western Sudan town of Annuhud and studied in its religious institute before he would join Alazhar University in Egypt and later on the Soviet universities where he obtained his doctorate degree for his thesis “Innovations In Modern Arabic Verse Poetry”. In his thesis he made a review of the Arabic verse’s romantic periods and their interaction with international verse, focusing on the poetry of Sudanese Poet Altijani Yousif Bashir as a case study.

His poetry had combined originality with innovation. Alhassan is classified among the innovators in free verse.

But Alhassan had his own pre-requisites for a good composer of free verse. “To be a good writer of free verse, one should first be good in composing old poetry,” he had told me in that conversation.

Beside his contributions as a poet, Alhassan was a literary critic and a translator. He had translated several works of Russian writers into Arabic, including those of Rasul Gamzatov and Lermontov. His good command of Russian had allowed him to look into many of the works of Asian, European and African writers translated into Russian, beside his deep insight into Russian literature.

Alhassan’s patriotic song: ‘Asia and Africa’ written in his hometown of Annuhud following the convening of the first conference of the Non-alignment Movement in the Indonesian town of Bandung, is seen as an emblem of epical poetry. In that poem Alhassan had made a documentation of places, of times and of historical figures that played a role in the initiation of the non-alignment movement. His name continues to be associated with this poem to the degree that some prefer to dub him: “The lover of Asia and Africa.” Reads a stanza in the poem:

“I will sing my last stanza for the beloved land,

For the blue shadows in the forests of Kenya and Malay,

For the minarets lit by the First of May*,

For the nights of joy in new China for which a thousand poems in my heart I play!”

The poem was performed by outstanding melodist Abdelkareem Alkably and garnered wide popularity.

Alhassan returned from Russia to the Sudan in 1972 and assumed the office of secretary general of the committee for Arabicisation at the Sudanese Ministry of Higher Education up to 1994. The committee was assigned to translate school and university syllabuses from English to Arabic. Its scope had extended to other domains of knowledge. Alhassan was staff member at the University of Khartoum and then the private Ahlia University until his departure.

Dr. Mu’tasim Ahmed Alhaj, director of Mohammad Omar Bashir’s center at the Ahlia University says Alhassan, Jaily, Faytouri and Faris were “a distinct quadruple whose production caused a stir of appreciation among the Arab poets who did not expect to see such a fine art depicting patriotism and reacting to humanitarian issues of the time.”

“The existence of such poets in the Sudan was another wonder. They represented an immense symbolic value. They had introduced Sudan to the Arab and international literary and cultural worlds,” maintains Dr. Alhaj.

Alhassan is seen as one of the pioneers of the revolutionary tide against colonialism in the 1950s. His poem “Asia and Africa” reflects his cultural and political vision and affiliations. When he wrote this poem Alhassan was in the remote town of Annuhud and had never seen the places he mentioned in it. Had he been a citizen of an advanced country, authorities would have taken him by plane to see all those places he had mentioned in the poem. Because of our backwardness we waste a lot of our national heritage,” Dr. Alhaj further maintains.

He called for the publishing of Alhassan’s memoirs because they are part of the history of Sudan and Egypt and a complementary part of his life history and poetry. It would be a good gain for the Sudanese and Arab cultural and literary movement if his memoirs would be published, adds Alhaj.

Literary Critic A’amir Mohammed Ahmed is of the view that Alhassan’s influence had transcended the poetry of his home country to the Arab poetry at large with respect to the freedom of the poem and the way the poet could send his message. Poetry was shackled with and fossilized in the spirit and form of the old poem until when a coup lead by Nazik Almalayka occurred and took it into new horizons, forms and themes. Then came the era of the young Sudanese living in Cairo topped by Alhassan, Jaili, Faitouri and Faris who added new themes and forms. Alhassan’s verse was characterized by expressive meanings, strong ideas and high vision.

Alhassan is a high poetic stature that did not receive due consideration. There is need for more examination of the verse of this poet who was one of the pioneers of innovation in poetry.

Critic Majthoub Aydaroos tells Sudanow that Alhassan was part of the modern Arabic verse and the free verse. According to Aydaroos, Alhassan and his Sudanese colleagues had picked this trend from Arab poets Badr Shakir Alsayyab, Nazik Almala’ika and Abdelwahhab Albayyati. After a look into Alhassan’s, Faytouri’s, and Jaily’s verse, Egyptian Critic Zakariyya Alhijjawi wrote that: “Three Sudanese poets have snatched the banner of poetry from all: “Blacks and Whites” and have hoisted high the banner of Sudanese national verse.”

“Alhassan was a careful reader, a poet and critic. He was an intellectual, was humble and had added a good deal to Arab verse and in this he had a rich experiment. He had several publications in the domains of verse, humanitarian studies and literary research,” said Aydaroos.

 

*The First of May is a reference to the international labor day.

 

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