Poetry defines the Arabs; this is not an exaggeration. Over the centuries, verse and literature have featured as key facets of Arab culture, at every point during their tribal and imperial civilizations. For pre-Islamic Arabs, poetry was speech – banal and casual. As an oral civilization, they perfected dialogue in verse, heavied their tongues with beauty whenever they could. For Arabs, “poetry is activated in the breath:” it was not made to be written down, but to be spoken, performed, felt and understood through interaction. The Arabian Peninsula was a hub for oral qasa’id (i.e. long odes) inherited through memory, often depicting the desert, abandoned campsites, the fine-lines of life and death, and the Bedouin experience. Forbidden love stories, issues of class and courtship, and the continuous challenging of sociocultural boundaries were all features of this niche. An Arab poet was a public figure. These story-tellers were present at any event – or without cause at all. They gathered large, elaborately-diverse audiences, and recited equally elaborate tales in meter. Oftentimes, poets would engage in a battle of wits and poeticism, improvising beauty and boasting accomplishments as they flew verse-for-verse against…
