Antara by Nizar Qabbani (English Version)

It's a real shame that the works of Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) haven't been translated much and that he is so little known outside the borders of the Arab world. He conquered the hearts of the Arabs with words of impassionate love, and when he lost his dear Balqis in a bomb blast, his love turned into an enduring pain and his poetry became an army of words combatting the numerous ills of the Arab world. Needless to say that Qabbani's poetry was banned in the region until recently (and remains so in certain countries). The poet passed away in exile in London, far away from the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad, who was then at the helm of the country. Bashar al-Assad, his son, is now in power but nothing has really changed in the country of ''Antara'' except for the bloody unrest, as would have written Qabbani.

Antara was an Arab hero from the pre-Islamic era. He was the despised son of a black slave who made his fortunes through acts of bravery and won the heart of the beautiful Abla. Centuries later, and as Qabbani once wrote, ''in an Arab era which has specialized in assassinating poems,'' Antara became, under the pen of the poet, the prototype of the almighty and omniscient dictators who ruled or are still ruling so many countries across all continents.

Antara

This country is a furnished apartment

Owned by a man called Antara

He gets drunk all night long at its gates

And collects the rent from the tenants

He asks its women for marriage

And shoots on its trees, on its children, on its eyes

And on its scented fingers

This land is a private farm belonging to Antara

Its sky, wind and women

Its green pastures

All windows bear Antara's picture

All public squares carry Antara's name

Antara lives in our clothes

In the loaf of bread, in the bottle of cola

And in our dying dreams

In the lettuce and watermelon carts

In the buses and in the train station

In the airport customs and on the postal stamps

On the football fields

In the pizza restaurants

And on all the denominations of forged currencies

An abandoned, refugee city

Not a single mouse, an ant

Or a brook or a tree

Nothing to amaze the tourists

Except the official, authorized portrait

Of General Antara

In the drawing room,

On his happy birthday

In his sumptuous, walled palaces

Of prodigal extravagance

Nothing new in the life of this colonized city

Our sorrows and deaths repeat themselves

The aroma of coffee on our lips repeats itself

Since our birth, we are imprisoned in a bell jar

And in double-talk language

When we start school,
We study a single biography

Which tells us about the might of Antara,

And the generosity of Antara,

And the miracles of Antara

At all cinema theaters,

We only watch a tedious Arabic movie

Starred by Antara

The first piece of news is about Antara

The third piece of news, the fifth, the ninth and the tenth
Are all about Antara

There is nothing in the second program

Except a Qanun musical piece composed by Antara,

An oil painting scribbled by Antara

And a medley of the worst poems sung by Antara

The writers give their voice

To the most erudite of intellectuals: Antara

They embellish his ugliness, they write the history of his era, they spread his thought

And they beat the drums of his triumphant wars

There are no stars on television

Except for Antara

With his graceful figure

Or his expressive laugh

One day as a duke and a prince

One day as a poor laborer

One day on a Russian tank

One day on an armored carrier

And one day on our crushed ribs

Nizar Qabbani