Interview by Fawziya Al-Jalal

Ghazi Al-saibi represents a special cultural case. He is the poet, the narrator, the academic, and the researcher. Although he spent half a century in public service as a professor, dean, head of an institution, ambassador, and minister for four ministries, he remained the creative intellectual, exciting whether he wrote or was silent, and enriching whether he versified or prosified.

Just like his special case, the papers of beginnings are not appreciated except when Ghazi writes them. So you read "Al-Bara'im" (The Buds) of a boy who had not yet bypassed the dream, and there the poet is hidden in the heart of a child, leaning on the childhood of a heart, invading the Arabism of a young man, and the nostalgia of a teenager. "Al-Bara'im" are poems that grew in different times and places, recorded the birth of the first lines, and presented the great poet when he was young in poetic paintings that were the start of a journey of giving and glowing that did not approach extinction.

"Ahwal Al-Ma'rifa" sought this interview with Dr. Ghazi Al-saibi about "Al-Bara'im" and the splendor of beginnings, their melancholy and fatigue: The first collection was finally published, so is it a return to old papers?

- No, it is a return to the old days, the days when the heart throbbed with a new love with every new day and new look. The days when Arab concerns occupied the hearts of the youth, before camel beauty contests, "distinguished numbers", and weak Nabataean poetry. The days when life had the taste of the first dawn full of promising secrets. The days when poetry flowed without calculating for publishing, a critic, or a literary school. The days when the poet believed he could change the world, and the world conspired with every poet for change. It is a return to the Japanese Garden in Helwan, and the Poet's Island in the Garden, and the Azbakia Wall. It is a return to the single Arab state that will appear as soon as we knock on the door. It is a return to the one Arab nation that will emerge as soon as colonialism disappears.

O sister, it is a return to the most beautiful, purest, and clearest in my heart, to the pre-pollution journey: pollution of the soul, pollution of feelings, and pollution of poetry.

The mother in "Al-Bara'im" is a ghost associated with separation, pain, and wounds: Mother! Oh, from the wounds of painful separation. And people say: If only we had the life of Ghazi who was born with a lden spoon in his mouth?

I believe scientifically that a person born with a lden spoon, or any other metal, in his mouth would die from the blockage of the milk passage! Anyway, I was born a difficult birth that was not far from the birth of Abu Shlakh the Amphibian (now someone will say that Abu Shlakh is me, let them say!!). I never once indicated that I belong to a lden or velvet class. my life was not much different from the lives of the children around me.

The difference was not a lden spoon; I think it was a large amount of sensitivity that taught the child sadness before teaching him laughter, trained him on isolation instead of encouraging him to mix, and made him prefer the company of books to the company of people. In this regard, I don't think the child has changed much.

A child addressing his nation: Sleep on the compassion stained with blood, And suffer in glory to suffer. How did the child interact with a gesture and phrase that adults have not bypassed, despite half a century passing since?

The matter is not here. Things more beautiful than the poetry of your friend (the child) were said in Algeria. The question is: Why does Algeria remain after half a century sleeping on a blood-stained compassion? And why has the Arab nation remained for half a century suffering in vain? I don't know the answer, but I know that I sometimes wish history would stop; if those who gained independence hadn't, and those who tyrannized hadn't, and those who were defeated hadn't.

"Al-Bara'im" is the poetry of a child who did not address childhood; do you not think of saying something to the child now?

"Al-Bara'im" is not the poetry of a child, and I wish it were. If it were, it would have come white as mother's milk, whispering like the babble of brooks, and innocent as the dreams of a blonde girl. "Al-Bara'im" is the poetry of a teenager, and that's why it came with all kinds of volcanoes exploding in the face of the beloved... and in the face of the colonizer! I cannot say poetry for the child. I have not reached this peak of talent, nor do I expect to reach it... I am content to raise all my collections as a salute to every poet who dared to address children in poetry, starting from the Prince of Poets down to my great teacher, the poet Suleiman Al-Issa. Truly, I tell you: The poet of children is the Prince of Poets!

In my soul is a meaning that the rest of the people do not understand, so you said in "Al-Bara'im", is this meaning still hidden?

In the days of "Al-Bara'im"... and in these autumn days of mine, and in every time and place... the most beautiful poetry for the poet remains what he didn't write, and his strongest feelings remain those that no one understands, and the most beautiful insight remains that which refuses to enter the house of obedience: words!

Barley (worldy matters) has distracted you from poetry and we missed the presence of the creative in evenings, seminars, dialogues, and writings. Will you not devote yourself to us for a bit, and leave the sponsorships and visas?

The proverb I know in this context says: "Al-Jarid prevented the poetry." Al-Jarid is death; may d grant us and you a od end. As for the speaker, he was a miserable pre-Islamic poet whom Al-Nu'man decided to kill on the day of his misfortune, but he wanted before sucking his blood to enjoy some of his poetry (see how sadism develops to become a fine art!). But his poet refused and said what he said. As for the barley that prevents his poetry, perhaps it is a new proverb produced by the barley and flour crisis, just as it produced the fact that we will remain forever with management by crises. O sister! I respect seminars, dialogues, and meetings, but I don't like attending them: I don't have abundant knowledge to overflow from societal knowledge, and I don't think they have anything we can learn from. Leave me in my corner with an old book or a new collection, for this is better for me and more beneficial for the readers.