Abdullah Shabu,The Dean Of Sudanese Poets: Arab Culture Has Great Impact On Spanish Poetry
10 December, 2017Abdullah Shabu, the dean of Sudanese poets, to “Sudanow”:
- The older one gets the more reflective and accepting the other one becomes.
- Arab Culture has a great impact on Spanish poetry.
- Decline of Arab culture within instability.
- The role of poetry and poets is to express the public awareness.
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - Abdullah Shabu is considered one of the pioneers of Modernist Poetry in Sudan. Born in 1937 in Alkoua city in the White Nile region, he started to publish his poems since the fifties of the last century. Hence, he published “A Song for the Man of the Twenty-First Century” (Ughniya Li Insane Al Qarne Al Hadi wal Ichreen) in 1968, “Collector of Night” (Hatib Lail) in 1988 and “The Tree of Good Love” (Chajaru Al Hubbi Al Tayeb) in 2004. He served as the secretary of poetry at Aba Damak, a Sudanese cultural group that was created in Khartoum in the mid-1960s. Mohammed al-Makki Ibrahim considered him the dean of Sudanese poets. He acquired a great experience during his academic life in the United States of America. He is a keen lover of Spanish poetry and culture and has many approaches and comparisons of Arabic and Spanish poetry. Currently, he is the President of the Sudanese Writers Association, which was founded in 2005. The International Tayeb Salih Award honored him, and considered him the personality of the year in a previous session. Sudanow met him and conducted the following dialogue with him.
Q: At your beginnings you were known as a leftist poet, and then turned from the left wing, why and how?
A: I am just poet Abdullah Shabou, I was a leftist then I left. The older one gets and acquires more knowledge the more mature one becomes. This maturity pushes one to review his previous positions and become more open to humanity and ideology. Mustafa Sanad for example, was neither leftist nor revolutionary but he is a glorious poet. To say that the left controlled the cultural scene or that no one was allowed to enter this scene except through it, is not true, and I tell you frankly, the older one becomes the more reflective and receptive to the others he gets.
Q: You were one of the founders of the Sudanese cultural group (Aba Damak) that was created in the seventies of the last century and that had the same vision with the School of the “Forest and Desert” concerning the Sudanese identity, how do you read that experience?
A: The “Forest and Desert” was not a poetic wave, but a historical and intellectual movement. Aba Damak too was not a cultural trend, but a literary organization in which poets and writers were organized and wanted to contribute to the enlightenment, each from his/her situation be they poets or writers or artists. Aba Damak was talking about changing the world politically and that is why many people rebelled against it. We saw that we were not there for political work. We had greater potential and capabilities than politicians.
Q: What about the question of the Sudanese identity raised by the School of the “Forest and Desert”?
A: The “Forest and Desert” was theorized mainly by four or five writers who looked at the Sudanese identity through the bilateral Arab and African culture. They went on to say that Sudan is a hybrid country, and wanted to theorize the forest and read the desert by purely cultural motivation. There was a political load in these brothers’ thesis; so, whether they succeeded or failed they have the reward of the effort.
Q: It is said that the poet is rebellious, is there any relationship between poetry and rebellion?
A: Rebel against what and why? This is the question. I rebel against myself if I have one single ideology for instance. I rebel when I look at reality. By nature, I do not like politics. Writers and poets are deeper than politicians, and intellectuals have greater sense of the nation. It is said that the artist and poet are rebellious by nature because they are not satisfied by their reality and this is true, but there is the benign rebellion, the rebellion of ideas. Otherwise, one may enter into a bohemian life that takes them far from life, to live in their delusions away from the realm of creativity.
Q: You translated poems of Lorca, and you are fluent in Spanish. What is the impact of Arab culture on Spanish poetry?
A: My relationship with Spanish was coincidental. When I was serving at the Kosti High School as an English teacher in the sixties, there was a Christian cleric who was fluent in Spanish. I asked him to teach me Spanish and in return I would teach him Arabic and Islamic heritage. I learned Spanish and he did not learn Arabic. Arabic poetry is the best and most beautiful poetry in the world. Spanish poetry is also beautiful and there are prominent Spanish poets. Arab culture has a great impact on Spanish poetry as the Arabs have been for eight centuries in Spain. There was great impact of Arabic poetry on Lorca and Rafael Alberto especially in Lorca's Gypsy Songs. The presence of Arab poetry in the Spanish term is very intense. I dare say that one of the reasons why Lorca was killed was that he used to say “I am going to my Arab Islamic kingdom in Granada”.
Q: How do you read the multiplicity of cultural entities in Sudan?
A: The multiplicity of these entities is due to differences in visions. Now there are three main associations: The Sudanese Writers Association, The Sudanese Writers Union, and The Union of Writers. I think that each group seeks to develop cultural work through its own perspective and each of them has a different vision. I do not refuse to gather all these unions in one union, but multiculturalism refers to political pluralism with different methods. So who wants to work in culture or in politics or in the social field and has the ability to put what he sees in every field, then let them work, and for this let those aspire, who have aspirations.
Q: What about the relationship of poetry to politics and how do you read the outcome of the Arab Spring on the cultural level?
A: The role of poetry and poets is to express the public awareness, the poet is also required to express himself, the self exists in time and place with all people in a specific environment, and revolutions are one of the motivators of some poets, the Germans for example wanted to make German poet Goethe a national poet but they failed. Revolutions may lead to the consolidation of culture, but the revolutions of the Arab Spring are not completed yet, and I see that there is a decline of culture in this situation of instability.
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