Shi'r

Shi'r (Arabic: مجلة شعر; Poetry in Arabic) was a literary magazine with a special reference to poetry. The magazine was published in Beirut, Lebanon, between 1957 and 1970 with a three-year interruption. The founders were two leading literary figures: Yusuf al-Khal and Adunis.

Shi'r
CategoriesPoetry literary magazine
FrequencyMonthly
FounderYusuf al-Khal
Adunis
Unsi Al Hajj
Year founded1957
First issueJanuary 1957
Final issueAutumn 1970
CountryLebanon
Based inBeirut
LanguageArabic

History and profile

Shi'r was started in Beirut in 1957, and the first issue appeared in January.[1][2] The founders were Yusuf al-Khal, Adunis[3] and Unsi Al Hajj.[4] Their goal in establishing Shi'r which was an avant-garde monthly journal was to present a non-political version of poetry.[3] This version of poetry is called Al Shi'r al Hurr (Free Poetry in Arabic).[5] The magazine also aimed at supporting the Afro-Asian solidarity and nonalignment which had been stated in the Bandung Conference in 1955.[6]

Al-Khal was the editor-in-chief of Shi'r.[1] Adunis served in different positions: at the beginning he was the editor and from 1958 he began to function as the secretary of the editorial board.[1] He became the managing editor in 1961 and co-owner and co-editor-in-chief of Shi'r in 1963.[1] However, he left the magazine soon after these roles.[1]

The contributors were part of the Shi'r school, and the magazine was an organ of this movement.[7] The magazine was significantly affected from Ahmed Zaki Abu Shadi's the Apollo Poet Society founded in Cairo, Egypt, in 1932.[7] Salma Khadra Jayyusi argues that Shi'r is, in fact, the successor of Apollo which was an organ of this society.[5] Sargon Boulus, an Iraq-born Assyrian poet, started his career in the magazine in 1961.[8]

Although both were avant-garde publications and supported free verse movement, Al Adab, a literary magazine established in Beirut in 1953, was the main adversary of Shi'r.[9] Because the contributors of Shi'r opposed the movement of committed literature (al-adab al-multazim in Arabic), a dominant approach in the 1950s and 1960s in the Arab world which was also supported by Al Adab.[3]

Shi'r was banned in some countries due to its alleged support for the cultural war against Arab nationalism and its being funded by the CIA and French intelligence.[3] It was temporarily shut down in 1964 and restarted in Spring 1967.[1][2] In the second phase al-Khal also served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine of which the scope was expanded to cover other literary subjects in addition to poetry.[1] Shi'r ceased publication in Autumn 1970.[1]

Studies on Shi'r

Kamal Kheir Beik, a Syria-born dissident and poet, analysed Shi'r in his PhD thesis which was completed at the University of Geneva in 1972.[10] Another comprehensive study on Shi'r is a book by Dounia Badini published in 2009.[11]

References
  1. Ed de Moor (2000). "The rise and fall of the review "shi'r"". Quaderni di Studi Arabi. 18: 85–96. JSTOR 25802897.
  2. Basilius Bawardi (November 2019). "The Magazine Shi‛r and the Poetics of Modern Arabic Poetry" (Book summary). Peter Lang.
  3. Mark D. Luce (2017). "Shi'r". Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. doi:10.4324/9781135000356-REM1626-1.
  4. Jens Hanssen; Hicham Safieddine (Spring 2016). "Lebanon's al-Akhbar and Radical Press Culture: Toward an Intellectual History of the Contemporary Arab Left". The Arab Studies Journal. 24 (1): 196. JSTOR 44746852.
  5. Salma Khadra Jayyusi (1977). Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 569, 602. ISBN 978-90-04-04920-8.
  6. Monica Popescu (2020). At Penpoint. African Literatures, Postcolonial Studies, and the Cold War. Durham; London: Duke University Press. p. 48. doi:10.1515/9781478012153. ISBN 978-1-4780-0940-5.
  7. John Haywood (1978). "Book review". Die Welt des Islams. 18 (3–4): 236. JSTOR 1570475.
  8. Peter Clark (18 January 2008). "Obituary: Sargon Boulus: Iraqi poet who joined the Beat generation". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  9. Yvonne Albers (26 July 2018). "Start, stop, begin again. The journal 'Mawaqif' and Arab intellectual positions since 1968". Eurozine. Archived from the original on 17 April 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
  10. Salma Harland (3 March 2021). "Two Poems by Kamal Kheir Beik". ArabLit Quarterly.
  11. Robyn Creswell (2019). City of Beginnings. Poetic Modernism in Beirut. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 204. ISBN 9780691185149.
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