Ashraf Aboul-Yazid Modern egyptian poetry seeking an identity In the middle of hard dilemmas, severe wars and bloody revolutions, people of literature try to find their solid roots that help them standing steady in the face of those strong quakes which could destroy everything. Amid all of modern changes forcing Egyptian poets, they seek for their identity; once by cultivating their old Sufi heritage for an inspiration, looking back in anger at the classic forms of poetry for a revenge, or going towards the west; the eternal conqueror, trying to invade it in return through languages, by finding a foot space for their words in different tongues. Some poets found that their poetic fathers are already dead or old, and the nostalgia for the past is more than having passion for the future: they think that any poet, in ancient history, who had spiritual anxiety, is a modern poet. “Constantine Cavafy (1863 – 1933), who was an Egyptian Greek poet, journalist and civil servant, is considered the poet of the present and the next moment, despite his many works is very old; he seems as if he is writing from grave. The conclusion is: If you want to kill poetry, it is very easy: limit it to one recipe or one pattern. Poetry is bigger than poets, and wider of all styles, it is a free bird that you cannot keep in cages.” (1). Looking at the different types and forms of Egyptian poetry today, I find it difficult to neglect the idea that getting quotes from the Sufi heritage would give us modern Sufi poets!
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