Poetry of Place: Arabia
 T.J. Gorton

 Pages: 160
 Format: Paperback
 ISBN: 978-1-906011-20-8

 Area of interest: Arabia
 Genre:  Poetry, Travel

 Date of first publication: 2010
 Eland publication date: March 1, 2010
 Price: £6.99

     

Even before Islam, poetry was at the heart of Arabic culture. It developed wherever Arabic came to be spoken, from Damascus to Fez, Baghdad to Cairo, as well as in the Arabian heartland. This book takes us on a poetic journey through the classical age of Arabic poetry, from the years AD600–1000.

Poignant images of solitude, impossible love and the austere beauty of the desert pervade the poems, even when the poet lived in an urbane, courtly milieu. There are mystical poems and blasphemous ones; war poems and political ones; satires, joke poems and ingenious nature poems.

All have been selected and translated by T. J. Gorton whose aim has been to convey the spirit, and when possible something of the rhythms, of this highly musical verse.