MANY studies trace the origins of Egyptian poetry back to the dynastic and ancient times of Egypt. Many texts found on temple walls and papyrus leaves revealed a full embodiment of the concept of poetry, just as we know it today.
However, while we acknowledge the early origins of the art of poetry in Egyptian civilization, we cannot directly link contemporary Egyptian poetry to these ancient beginnings. This is because contemporary Egyptian poetry is fundamentally tied to the Arabic language, Egypt’s official language. Consequently, its primary connections are with Arabic poetry in its structures, styles, and aesthetic foundation.
Most studies on contemporary Egyptian poetry trace the beginnings of modernity to the resurrection and revival movement pioneered by Mahmoud Hassan al-Baroudi, followed by Ahmed Shawki (the Prince of Poets) and Hafez Ibrahim (the Poet of the Nile). This new poetic movement aimed to emulate ancient Arabic poetry, much like the neoclassical movement adopted the values of the classical school of literature in Europe.
The establishment of neoclassicism in Egypt coincided with a new renaissance in the translation of ancient and contemporary international poetry. Egyptian poets began to explore the new artistic movements in poetry, from Romanticism and Symbolism to the modern prose poem.
Influenced by the new schools of poetry, embodied in the Apollo and Diwan schools of poetry, characteristic features of Romanticism were manifested with poets such as Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi, Ibrahim Naji, Ali Mahmoud Taha, Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, Abdel Rahman Sedky, and others.
By the mid-twentieth century, one of the most important movements of poetic renewal emerged in contemporary Egyptian poetry: the Tafila (free versification) movement. This movement abandoned the fixed unit of the verse (the verse), which had a regular and consistent number of rhythmic units (tafail) in each verse throughout the poem. Instead, the poem adopted a freer structure where the number of rhythmic units varies from line to line.
The pioneers of this free verse movement in Egypt were Ahmed Abdel Muti Hijazi and Salah Abdel Sabour, with Amal Dunkel, Mohamed Ibrahim Abu Sunna, and Afifi Matar among its brightest stars.
The change in the contemporary Egyptian poem was not only in structure. It also liberated the poetic imagination from the authority of the old Bedouin poem, with its traditional imagery and aesthetic perceptions, moving towards more modern imagery and benefiting from the revolution in human knowledge that characterized the second half of the twentieth century. The period saw significant presence of contemporary issues, most notedly decolonisation and the rise of post-colonial nationalism.
While neoclassical and romantic texts continued to be present in the official literary landscape alongside the New Tafila poem, the new prose poem flourished in Egypt in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Contemporary poets such as Yasser al-Zayyat, Ali Mansour, Ibrahim Daoud, Atif Abdel Aziz, Fathi Abdallah, Mahmoud Qarni, Emad Abu Saleh, Iman Mersal, Fathi Abdel Samia, Osama al-Haddad, and dozens of other significant names emerged in the modern poetry scene.
The Egyptian prose poem is characterized by its keen focus on the everyday, the living, and the details of daily life, as well as its engagement with postmodern concepts in art and literature.
Osama Gad is a poet and editor from Cairo.
