On the Wings of Freedom

Sabah Zwein

On the Wings of Freedom

On "Khana Farigha" (Blank Space)

Salman Masalha’s language is characterized by the pushing of the self far from the banal. The language presents itself to the reader, sure of itself, quiet and different. The difference is in the constant orientation that the poet adopts in the work of constructing the poetic expression, which seems ostensibly familiar but in truth is truly striking.

In Masalha’s poetry we feel as though it were a storm wind that is blowing without taking into account what it will leave behind. Salman Masalha’s language is a fortress that he places in face of the tribulations raging all around. He does not describe, but rather states the details of life from within a profound perception in which there are intense emotions mixed with the idea of death, the hidden and the unknown. He does not address the everyday, even if in a quick reading we might think that he adopts this sort of discourse. He goes forth from within a personal and surprising articulation and takes off in order to glide alone in the skies of poetry, equipped with the wings of freedom. He does not belong to any flock and he sounds only his own song. He seeks truth and pursues new fields and when he returns to the forest he finds only an old nest, and even the tree in the forest no longer recognizes him. The love of the journey to the unknown causes death to grow in his wings, cause the search for a woman.


The poet mourns the loss of place and the loss of meaning. When he notices the “dry branch,” he seems to come to the realization of the difficult and bitter reality, as it has not remained the same land and the same place, with the precious memories. This is the reality of death in the homeland, or life in the unknown homeland.

Nostalgia leads the poet to distant realms, to realms that belong to the distant past, to distant memories and a distant heritage. The waves bear him and throw him onto shores of primal sands, and at the same time place him in the erupting nature that never rests for a moment nor reveals his identity to him. “Hidden, like Bedouin love, the winds of madness blew over me, letting me lean on the trunks of palm trees, eternally tied, I would return to the empty desert like one whose entire search is in vain, apart from the faded splendor.”

If the writing of poetry cannot be devoid of nostalgia, and every poet expresses this in his own way, then Masalha serves it up with a light hand. He writes his nostalgia in a realistic way by means of presenting the idea in clear words and sentences and with great economy. He does not go on at length, and he keeps away from whining. He relies on his roots, dreams about them and it appears that he is burning with longing for those roots.

At the same time, Maslha lives the present. Ostensibly, he seems not to care. Is this really the case? Even though it appears that he is free of this flood, often stream of feeling flow from him that suffice to set the landscapes around him on fire. At the same time, he takes care to control his language so that it will not deviate from the fortress he has built for himself, so that the language will continue to reside within the wall of beauty that is carved in a sensitive way. “As I lie on my back with nothing beneath me to protect me from my sorrow, I cannot see above me anything but the night I have brought down, shards of ancient countries at my feet. If I come to build the house of our love in you, keep the house and be.”



Published in: An-Nahar, Beirut,June 26, 2002
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صباح زوين ||

تحليق بجناحي الحزن

لغة سلمان مصالحة اقصاء للذات عن الذات وعن المتداول. تقدم نفسها إلى القارئ واثقة، هادئة، مختلفة وأعني بالاختلاف الاتجاه الثابت الذي يتبناه الشاعر في بناء تعبيره الذي يبدو أليفًا للوهلة الأولى، لكنه في الواقع صدامي وقاس. يشعرنا بقوة لغوية، كأنها ريح تهبّ عنيفة، غير مكترثة بالأثر الذي تخلّفه وراءها.

لغة سلمان مصالحة حصن يرفعه الشاعر في وجه ما يصدمه. لا يصف بل يقول أشياء الحياة من خلال نظرة عميقة تخالجها أحاسيس مكثفة ممزوجة بفكرة الموت والمجهول. لا يلجأ إلى الكلام على اليومي، وإن بدا في قراءة سريعة أنّه يتبنّى هذا النوع. ينطلق من صيغة فردية وفجائية، طائرًا منفردًا يحلّق في سماء القصيدة بجناحين طليقين. لا ينتمي الى سرب ولا يغرّد الا بصوته. يبحث قلقًا عن الحق "(...)بحثًا عن حقول اكتساح جديدة، عاد الى الغابة الوارفة، فلم يجد على الفرع اليابس عشًّا قديمًا، ولم تعرفه الشجرة (...) عشق السفر الى المجهول، أنبتَ الريش في جناحيه، الموت، والبحث عن صديقة".

يتألم الشاعر من غياب المكان والمعاني. كأنه يتنبه من خلال "الفرع اليابس" الى الواقع ومرارته، حيث لم تبق الأرض الأولى ثمينة الذكريات. إنّه "الموت في الوطن"، بل العيش في وطن المجهول، في أرض الغياب. الحنين يقتاد الشاعر أبعد من جغرافيته المادية، نحو مدارات تنتمي الى ماضٍ وإرث وذكريات. يرميه موج الزمن على شاطئ يعيده الى رمل البداية والبداوة، ويضعه في الوقت عينه في أحضان طبيعة لا تستقر في ذاته اذ لا تفصح له عن هويتها ولا عن حقيقة مداها: "خلسة، وكما عشق البداوة، كانت تهبّ عليّ رياح الجنون، تهبني من لدنها فرصة الاتّكاء على أصول النخل. وبخفّي حنين المطوّق طوق الحمام، كنت أعود الى رُبعي الخالي، إلاّ من الأمجاد البوالي".

إذا كانت الكتابة الشعرية لا تخلو من الحنين، فكل شاعر يعبّر عنه بلغته الخاصة، ويأتيه مصالحة متخففًا من أثقال الجوف وكثافته المضنية. يقول حنينه في "واقعية" ركيزتها نثر الفكرة في كلام واضح ومقتضب. لا يسترسل وينأى عن الحزن والكآبة. يتكئ على جذوره، يحلم بها، ولعلّه يحترق بشوق رؤيتها.

لكنّ مصالحة يرى نفسه كذلك ابن زمنه ومشاعر عصره فيبدو على غير اكتراث هل هو حقاً غير مكترث؟ إن بدا احيانًا متحرّرًا من الفيض الداخلي، فإنه يتدفق أحيانًا أخرى بشلال من الانفعالات الكافية لإشعال الصور. ورغم ذلك، لا يغفل عن مراقبة لغته كي لا تتعدّى الحصن المكين الذي بناه، وكي تبقى اللغة ضمن السور الجمالي المصقول صقلاً رهيفاً: "حين أستلقي على الظهر بلا قاعٍ يَقيني من شجوني، لا أرى فوقي سوى الليل الّذي أسدلته وشظايا من بلاد البدء دوني. إنْ أنا جئت لأبني فيك بيتًا من هوانا، فاحفظي البيت وكوني".


(*) "خانة فارغة" لسلمان مصالحة ، صدر في منشورات "زمان"، القدس، .2002

نشرت: "النهار" أدب فكر وفن / الاربعاء 26 حزيران 2002
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Double Agent in Hebrew

Omri Herzog

Double Agent in Hebrew

"In Place," by Salman Masalha, Am Oved, 70 pp.

… I asked myself, what poetic and political task is given to someone who writes in a language that his not his mother tongue.

In 1975, the French intellectuals Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari coined the term "minor literature" in the context of their study of Franz Kafka: They argued that the major effect of a "minor" text, i.e. one that is written in a language that is not the original language of the writer's culture, is of de-territorialization, meaning a physical shift or change of direction that the text undergoes from the original language to the language of exile or the language of the new territory. The minor text does not have a place of its own: it functions in a space that is between given spaces – the space of the source language and the space in which the work is a visitor. The first book in Hebrew by poet and literary scholar Salman Masalha, "In Place," presents this movement: "I write in the Hebrew language / which is not my mother tongue / to lose myself in the world. He who does not / get lost, will never find the whole;" and this movement in turns creates a poetic experience that is rare in the complexity of its language, emotion and consciousness. This slim book of Hebrew is, to my taste, a masterpiece.

The unique language status of Masalha's poetry allows the conduct of negotiations with the fluid political relations that define the rules of belonging to the communal landscapes that are inherent in the Hebrew language. These are relations of negotiation that constitute a political burden – which can sometimes overwhelm certain minor works – but can also afford a creative privilege, because the poetic manipulation is carried out not on stable and pre-known language materials, but rather on the fact of their permanence and familiarity. Masalha's poems devote themselves to a double alienation effect: that which is inherent in the poetic medium itself and that which is inherent in the use of every routine of description or grammatical construction that sets it in motion. Masalha, the double agent of the speaker in the language, exploits it in a finely tuned, self-aware and sophisticated way, and enlists extraordinary creative and expressive freedom. He writes: "As I have no government, with / or without a head, and there is no / chairman sitting on my head, I can / under such extenuating circumstances / sometimes allow myself to be human, a bit free."

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