{"id":7825,"date":"2022-04-11T08:08:29","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T06:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=7825"},"modified":"2022-12-25T11:39:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-25T09:39:02","slug":"zajal-the-darija-poets-of-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/zajal-the-darija-poets-of-morocco\/","title":{"rendered":"Zajal \u2014 the Darija Poets of Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On a farm in Morocco, with Driss Mesnaoui and Sai\u0302da Chbarbi (photo courtesy Deborah Kapchan).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/h4>\n

Deborah Kapchan<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our business is to count the stars, star by star
\n<\/em>to chew the wind’s haughty arrogance
\n<\/em>and watch the clouds for when they’ll throw us a handful<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

and if the earth goes far away from us
\n<\/em>we’ll say everyone is possessed
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 everyone has lost their mind
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and time, never will its letters fall between our hands
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 until we write what we are<\/em><\/p>\n

Driss Mesnaoui 1995:73<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Counting the Stars
\n<\/strong>Zajal<\/em>: poetry in dialect. There is a long history of the form in oral literature. Poets in marketplaces and public squares, storytellers recounting epics in verses those around them can understand. As any Arab will tell you, Moroccan Arabic is about as far from Modern Standard as one can get, infused as it is with syntax and vocabulary from Tamazight, the language of the authocthonous Amazighin of North Africa, and spiced with Spanish and French. And yet, the movement for writing in Moroccan Arabic, or Darija, began decades ago. The mother tongue yields secrets that classical Arabic never will. It is about emotional resonance. The problem, however, is one of translatability, of reaching into the cultural depths of the genre, not only in its oral form, but now in its written incarnations. Zajal often remains local and its poets, though prolific, are rarely known outside of Morocco.<\/p>\n

I encountered two prominent Darija poets in 1995.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ahmed Lemsyeh and I met in Rabat. At that time, Lemsyeh was a schoolteacher and an activist in the Ichtiraki socialist party. More than that, he was already one of Morocco\u2019s finest poets, who often published his work in chapbooks and in one of the daily newspapers, Al Ittihad Al Ichtiraki<\/span><\/i>. Lemsyeh\u2019s was the first diwan<\/em>, or poetry collection, published in Darija.<\/p>\n

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Poetic Justice<\/em> is the most extensive collection of contemporary Moroccan poets in translation. Order a copy EU<\/a>\/US<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had come on a Fulbright to study Moroccan performance traditions. After independence in 1956, Moroccan artists wanted to define an authentic Moroccan theatre. Tired of performing Moli\u00e8re in French and Shakespeare in Arabic, they turned to the <\/span>halqa<\/span><\/i>, an old form of Moroccan entertainment, combining storytelling with satire.<\/span>\u00a0Literally meaning a link in a chain, the halqa is a circle of people with a performer in the center, an interactive space of humor and a demonstration of verbal and gestural acuity, performed in Moroccan dialect, D<\/i>arija<\/span>. <\/em>My first book was an ethnography of these performances in the Moroccan marketplace, including the emergent voices of women. I had read the treatises on the halqa by theorist Abdelkrim Berrechid and playwright Tayyeb Saddiqi. I had read the works of Juan Goytisolo, the Spanish expatriate writer living in Marrakech who evoked these scenes. I came to Rabat to attend the plays wherein the trope of the halqa was employed.<\/p>\n

In 1995, however, Mohammed the Fifth Theater was closed for repairs. Or for something. Was this about censorship? In Morocco, as in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa<\/span>, the critique is often hidden in symbols and in stories that take place in another time. Moroccan theater in dialect was one forum for this social critique. It was bawdy and virtuosic. But although the main theater was closed, there was a small annex in the back that remained open. And there, on my way home from Rabat\u2019s Kalila and Dimna bookstore one late afternoon, I stumbled through the open door into a performance of zajal. The audience was ohhhing and ahhiing, enrapt with the words, and sending up affirmations like \u201callah!\u201d as if at a musical concert. I did not understand everything I was hearing, but I waited until the performance was over, then introduced myself to the poet, Ahmed Lemsyeh. And so a friendship, and a project was born.<\/p>\n

Lemsyeh was very articulate about why it was necessary to write in the mother tongue. It held the secrets of culture, he said. While American anthropologists thought the word \u201cculture\u201d made sweeping, damaging generalizations, Moroccan poets and artists sought to make it as salient as possible. The metaphorical density of D<\/i>arija<\/span><\/i> resonated differently than classical Arabic. Would an Italian write poems in Latin?<\/p>\n

Lemsyeh drew his material from old sources like Sidi Abderrahman al-Majdub, a Moroccan Sufi mystic. Al-Majdub was still cited in the halqa centuries later. Lemsyeh didn\u2019t quote his quatrains directly but made allusions in such a way as to revive the auditor\u2019s memories of childhood, while creating something entirely new. He was a master craftsman of words. Listening to him, audiences would swoon.<\/p>\n

I had already been initiated into the genre of al-malhun<\/em> \u2014 sung poetry from the 14th century, also in D<\/i>arija<\/span><\/i>. My friend El Houcine Aggour, my roommate\u2019s boyfriend in Beni Mellal, had listened to it nonstop when we were all living together in 1982. After preparing a sumptuous tajine or couscous for us, he would put on a tape of El Hadj Toulali singing a song about al-dablij<\/em>, \u201ca bracelet\u201d that a suitor bought for his beloved and then lost. We learned Arabic this way, through listening to a Moroccan genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are having a reading in the park downtown on Thursday,\u201d Lemsyeh told me. \u201cCome. I will introduce you to the other zajalin<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Thursday arrived, I walked to the park shortly after the afternoon call to prayer. There was a seashell stage. People were beginning to congregate, men and women, many students, and other lovers of words. Lemsyeh greeted me. \u201cI\u2019m about to go on. I\u2019ll speak to you later,\u201d he said, and took the stage.<\/p>\n

Lemsyeh read from his most recent publication, Shkyn tarz al-ma<\/em>? (Who Embroidered the Water?<\/em>)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Time sneezed
\nAnd space expanded
\nA ray of sun swelled
\nAnd sleep shortened
\nThe skein got tangled and I couldn\u2019t find the tip of the string\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to Ahmed Lemsyeh reading excerpts from \u201cWatching the Soul\u201d:<\/em><\/p>\n