Mohammed Bennis
Encyclopedia
Mohammed Bennis is a Moroccan poet and one of the most important poets of the Modern Arabic Poetry. He was born in Fez
, Morocco
, in 1948 .
He contributes energetically to the modern Arabic poetry and he enjoys since the seventies , a particular status in the Arab culture. Muhsin J. al-Musawi writes about him: “The Moroccan poet Muhammad Bennis’ articulations tend to validate his poetics in the first place, to encapsulate the overlapping and contestation of genres in a dialectic that takes into account power politics whose tropes are special. As a discursive threshold between Arab East and the Moroccan West, tradition and modernity, and also a site of contestation and configuration, Muhammad Bennis Self-justifications may reveal another poetic predilection, too.”.
, particularly lyric poetry
. He pursued his university studies in literature at the Faculty of Letters and Human sciences-Dhar Mehraz, Fez, where he obtained, in 1972, the Bachelor of Art degree in Arabic Literature. At the Faculty of Letters and Human sciences of Rabat, Mohammed V-Agdal University, Bennis supported, in 1978, his thesis of PhD supervised by Abdelkébir Khatibi on the “Phenomenon of Contemporary poetry in Morocco”. And, at the same Faculty, he defended, in 1988, a doctoral thesis, supervised by Jamel-Eddine Bencheikh, on “Modern Arabic poetry, structures and mutations”. Bennis published his first poems in 1968 in Al Alam Newspaper in Rabat
. In 1969, he sent his poems to the poet Adonis
who then published them in n°9 of the review Mawakif. Ma Qabla al Kalam; (Before Words), Bennis’ first collection of poems was published in 1969. He settled in 1972, in Mohammedia, where he begun teaching Arabic language
. Since 1980, he has been professor
of Modern Arabic Poetry at the Faculty of Letters and Human sciences of Rabat, Mohammed V-Agdal University.
of around thirty titles (poetry
, prose
, essay
, and translation, among them, thirteen poetry collections, the poetic works (2 volumes), studies on Moroccan poetry and Modern Arabic poetry), Bennis published in numerous newspapers and reviews all over the Arab World. Some of his poems and texts have been translated and published in collective works, reviews and newspapers in Europe, the United States and in Japan. From 1995, poetry collections and book
s of him have been translated and published into French
, Spanish
, Italian
, Turkish
and Macedonian
. He writes on painting. Some of his works are realized, by painters, in the form of books and folio volumes, in Morocco
, Europe
, the United States and in Japan. Kitab al-Hobb (The Book of Love), which was realized in 1994 with the Iraqi painter Dia Azzawi, is the testimony of a common adventure.
Turned to the dialogue and the opening, Mohammed Bennis participated in many international meeting on poetry and culture. He had, also, translated works from French language
, among which included The Wound of the Proper Name, Abdelkébir Khatibi, The Rumor of the air, collected poetry works of Bernard Noël
, Tomb of Ibn Arabi, followed by 99 Stations of Yale, poetry collections and The Malady of Islam, three of Abdelwahab Meddeb
, A Throw of the Dice poem of Stéphane Mallarmé, published in a bilingual edition in common with Isabella Checcaglini and Bernard Noël
at Ypsilon Éditeur in Paris, in 2007, and Archangélique of Georges Bataille
in 2010.
He interested in literature, and above all poetry, in his first years at college. His university study was in the Faculty of arts at Fes. Turning toward dialogue, he translates from French language texts into Arabic, and participated in Arabic and International poetry festivals. In addition to his literary work, Bennis has been active on a politico-cultural level. In 1974 he founded the magazine “Al Thaqâfa Al Jadida” (The new Culture), which played an active role in the cultural life of Morocco until it was closed dawn by the Moroccan government in 1984 after unrest in Casablanca. In 1985 together with university professors and writers, he established the publishing house “Dar Toubkal”. He was also the driving force behind the funding of The House of Poetry in Morocco in 1996 and became its president from 1996 to 2003. He addressed in 1999 a call to UNESCO for an International day of poetry. The UNESCO declared Mars 21 as International day of Poetry.
Since 1969 he published about 30 collections of verse and essays in Arabic. Many poems of him was translated and published in French, Spanish, English, Deutsche, Italian, Swedish, Catalonian, Portuguese, Japanese, Slovenian and Macedonian. Several of his collections of poems have already been translated into French, Spanish and Italian and Turkey.
He acted as editor of the Attakafa El Jadids periodical He served on the judging panel for the 2008 International Prize for Arabic Fiction
. Bennis has also performed with the Sufi group the Hmadcha Ensemble.
and cultural route. In time, it has taken a radical dimension, to embrace the poetry
, the culture
, the modernity
and the freedom
.
Bennis's relationship to French culture is ambivalent. While he rejects the ideology of francophone policy (which for him represents a form of colonizing globalization) , he does hold the French language
in a very high regard: “As a modern Arab poet, I am committed to French culture and its modernity. The French language
was the home of a poetic revolution and it gave my Arabic language
a poetic strength, more valuable than any of other modern languages.”
Thus he is attached to the modernization of the language, to the freedom of expression based on the fundamental values of modernity. He has followed since youth the tracks of “the poets which made of the human life
, in its secrets as in its fears and its illuminations, their space of writing.” His poetry, which grounds itself, at once, on the measure and the trance, is the creative union of two cultures: the ancestral Arabic culture
, between the Middle East, Andalusia, Morocco, and the international culture.
From the concept of the writing, Mohammed Bennis grants an importance to his own composition of the rhythm . It is a question of creating a dynamic lyric that places the body and the senses in the center of the poem. From one collection to the other, the forms of his poems and the perspectives which opened its poetic method give evidence of that. Mohammed Bennis writes in this connection: “The construction of the poem, worked by the infinity of the subjectivity, by the stranger and the impure, undergoes unpredictable transformations. And so the poetic word, written in the margin of literature , does not stop destabilizing the syntax , diverting the image , decomposing the metrics and deforming the order saying itself clean, pure. The road of the poem is the one of the impure, where visible and invisible conjugate. This passage of the seed of the drunkenness becomes a reality in the poem. And here is the impure to wear, from now on, the sign of the pure , the beautiful and the stranger .”
And thus the poem, at a time where the culture of consumption and information makes devastation, and where the destructions of the human being triumph, “looks to the parole not at what expresses, but at what creates to me and to you, a renewed birth, human, infinite creation, of the parole.” First task, therefore, of the poem , is to hold up the language to keep in the parole, our parole, its possibility of continuing to live in us and between us. “This is the parole, he writes, which prolongs the parole, human, language of the infinity and the stranger.” The poem , in this sense, is an accompanist who accompanies, with ecstasy , the solitaries in the thirst of their departure unlimitedly towards the beautiful and the free: “what it means the interaction of the breath between the poet and the others in and with the world .”
This is a significant method in the modernization of the language and the Arabic poetry. It is described by the English poet James Kirkup in a letter addressed to Mohammed Bennis : “You allow every word that enters yours poetic consciousness to achieve its full expressive force, and they all manifest themselves as true movements fro; the heart of poetry. You are like a wild bird that sings simply for the joy of singing. You are fascinated by the sound in every word that offers itself to each loving gesture of your poem that allows you to play with words and images echoing your thought. And so you fascinate your readers.”
Kirkup adds, “You use poetic language as if it were some elemental matter which you carve as a sculptor does - the artist who like a blind man is able to feel beneath his chisel the forms he hammers from blocks of marble or granite. And you discover your poem-status without premeditation, by bringing to light and inscribing each line, each verse embedded in the rock of consciousness in the dark of dreams.”
In the same way, the Spanish poet, Antonio Gamoneda writes: “Mohammed Bennis, strange angel who enters in my veins and flows in them like the waters of the instants and you ignite the friendship of light: take me with you to the gardens of the dead, to the place of palms glimpsed between two fugitive abysses. Enter the hole of my chest and show me the gift of the void incandescent and the pupils of animals conceived in crying, those who come to the doors of intoxication to inject us with the passion of light, that substance which birds cross and makes us crazy in the happiness of the sweet contemplation of death.”
, Canada
, the United States, and in Latin America
.
Profiles on his work have appeared in magazines Ars plus, an Albanian Literary journal, nr 8 e diel, 31 August 2003; al Shu'arae review, The poets, a quarterly cultural review of House of Poetry in Ramallah, N 28-29, spring-summer, 2006; and Banipal literary magazine, Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, N 29, London, Summer on 2007. The Associations of writers and Moroccan University researchers have dedicated to his work days of study. In France, he has been awarded, in 2002, the rank of knight in the order of the Arts and Letters. He is also an honorary member of “World Haiku Association” in Japan.
in association with the author is appeared in 1999 to L’Escampette Publishing house, in Bordeaux
, and the Italian translation by Fawzi Al Delmi is appeared in 2000, under title He Dono Del Vuoto, in Edzioni San Marco dei Giustiniani, in Genoa, and Luis Miguel Cañada's Spanish translation in 2006, under title El Dono Del Vacio, with Antonio Gamoneda
's frontispiece, in Ediciones del directs del mediterraneo in Madrid. For the same collection, in its Italian translation, the Primio Calopezzati of the Mediterranean literature was awarded to him in 2006. The French Le prix Grand Atlas of translation (Rabat) was awarded to him in 2000 for its poetry collection Between two Funerals translates into French by Mostafa Nissabouri and published in L’Escampette Publishing house, in Bordeaux
in 2003. He also received el Primeo Feronia International for the literature (Italy
) in 2007, Al Owais Awards (Dubai
) for its whole poetic work was awarded in 2008, the Maghreb Culture Prize (Tunisia
) in 2010, and Premio Letterario Internazionale Ceppo Pistoia (the international literary prize Ceppo de Pistoia) in 2011 for its book Il Meditteraneo e la parola, published in 2009 in a translation of Francesca Corrao and Maria Donzelli, at Donzelli Editore in Rome
.
.
In French: Bernard Noël
's translation, in association with the author, of its collection Le livre de l’amour (The Book of the love), Al Manar Publishing house in Paris
is appeared with drawings of Dia Azzawi in January, 2008, translation of its collection Feuille de la splendeur (Leaf of Splendour) is appeared in a translation of Mounir Serhani, revised by Bernard Noël
in association with the author is appeared to Les éditions Cadastre8zéro publishing house in rance, and L’ambigu dans les mots (The dark in the words), a collection of poems in common with Bernard Noël
, with Joël Leik's drawings is appeared to El Manar Publishing house in Paris
in 2011;
in Italian: Il Mediterraneo e la parola, Viaggio, poesia, ospitalita, has translated by Francesca Corrao and Maria Donzelli, Donzelli Editore, Roma
, on 2009; in Turkish, Sarap, Türkçesi Metin Findikçi, Kirmizi Yayinlari, Istanbul, on 2009;
in Spanish: Un río entre dos funerales (poemas), translation of Luis Miguel Cañada, Icaria Editorial, Barcelona
, on 2010.
‘Three Poems: Bells, The Road to Jerusalem, Between Silence and Sun’, poems, translated by Noel Abdulahad, 2, 56-57; ‘Poems from Hieroglyphics’, ‘Rose of Dust’, translated by Anton Shammas, 5, 21-24; subject of ‘Mohammed Bennis, The free-floating anxiety of existence’ by Subhi Hadidi, 5, 22-23; ‘Selected Poems from the Gift of the Void: Doubts; Place; Silence; Frivolity; Impurity; Blindness; Trance; Lady; Palm; Wish’, translated by James Kirkup, 5, 24-25; ‘1945-2001 Zefzaf – a grand man of Moroccan and Arab letters’, 12, 26; ‘Desert on the brink of light’, translated by James Kirkup, 12, 56-59; ‘Ten poems: Faraway; A Blind Friend; Down there two Wingbeats; Perhaps; Fear; Apparition; Colours; One Drop; One Night and its Dead’, translated by James Kirkup, 19, 20-31; interviewed by Camilo Gomez-Rivas, 29, 114-23; ‘Gift of the Void: Impossible; View; Path; Encounter; Writing; She; Straying; Shades; Safekeeping; Examining; Women; Elsewhere; Wavering; Words; Travel; Over There You Stay: Stones Alone; The Night of the Ruby: Tremor; Red Growing; Road of Fire; Creation; Lord of the Ruby; Surfaces; Storefront’, translated by Camilo Gomez-Rivas, 29, 124-37; The power of his resistance’, translated by Youssef Rakha, 33, 53-55.
The Literary Review (USA) North Africa: Literary Crossroads, Vol. 41 No.2, 1998
Interview by Camilo Gomez-Rivas, Banipal, Issue 29, Summer, 2007.
http://www.banipal.co.uk/selections/56/80/mohammed_bennis/
http://www.banipal.co.uk/selections/19/141/mohammed_bennis/
http://www.ypsilonediteur.com/fiche.php?id=74
By Subhi Hadidi.
http://www.jehat.com/Jehaat/en/.../Mohammed-Bennis.htm - En cache - Pages similaires
http://www.worldhaiku.net/poetry/...bennis/m.bennis.htm
http://www.editmanar.com/auteurs/Livre%20de%20lamour.htm
Fes
Fes or Fez is the second largest city of Morocco, after Casablanca, with a population of approximately 1 million . It is the capital of the Fès-Boulemane region....
, Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, in 1948 .
He contributes energetically to the modern Arabic poetry and he enjoys since the seventies , a particular status in the Arab culture. Muhsin J. al-Musawi writes about him: “The Moroccan poet Muhammad Bennis’ articulations tend to validate his poetics in the first place, to encapsulate the overlapping and contestation of genres in a dialectic that takes into account power politics whose tropes are special. As a discursive threshold between Arab East and the Moroccan West, tradition and modernity, and also a site of contestation and configuration, Muhammad Bennis Self-justifications may reveal another poetic predilection, too.”.
Biography
Bennis first attended Koranic School, and he attended the public primary school in 1958, at the age of ten. From an early age, he is interested in literatureLiterature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, particularly lyric poetry
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
. He pursued his university studies in literature at the Faculty of Letters and Human sciences-Dhar Mehraz, Fez, where he obtained, in 1972, the Bachelor of Art degree in Arabic Literature. At the Faculty of Letters and Human sciences of Rabat, Mohammed V-Agdal University, Bennis supported, in 1978, his thesis of PhD supervised by Abdelkébir Khatibi on the “Phenomenon of Contemporary poetry in Morocco”. And, at the same Faculty, he defended, in 1988, a doctoral thesis, supervised by Jamel-Eddine Bencheikh, on “Modern Arabic poetry, structures and mutations”. Bennis published his first poems in 1968 in Al Alam Newspaper in Rabat
Rabat
Rabat , is the capital and third largest city of the Kingdom of Morocco with a population of approximately 650,000...
. In 1969, he sent his poems to the poet Adonis
Adonis
Adonis , in Greek mythology, the god of beauty and desire, is a figure with Northwest Semitic antecedents, where he is a central figure in various mystery religions. The Greek , Adōnis is a variation of the Semitic word Adonai, "lord", which is also one of the names used to refer to God in the Old...
who then published them in n°9 of the review Mawakif. Ma Qabla al Kalam; (Before Words), Bennis’ first collection of poems was published in 1969. He settled in 1972, in Mohammedia, where he begun teaching Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. Since 1980, he has been professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of Modern Arabic Poetry at the Faculty of Letters and Human sciences of Rabat, Mohammed V-Agdal University.
Works
AuthorAuthor
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of around thirty titles (poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
, essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
, and translation, among them, thirteen poetry collections, the poetic works (2 volumes), studies on Moroccan poetry and Modern Arabic poetry), Bennis published in numerous newspapers and reviews all over the Arab World. Some of his poems and texts have been translated and published in collective works, reviews and newspapers in Europe, the United States and in Japan. From 1995, poetry collections and book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s of him have been translated and published into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
and Macedonian
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
. He writes on painting. Some of his works are realized, by painters, in the form of books and folio volumes, in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, the United States and in Japan. Kitab al-Hobb (The Book of Love), which was realized in 1994 with the Iraqi painter Dia Azzawi, is the testimony of a common adventure.
Turned to the dialogue and the opening, Mohammed Bennis participated in many international meeting on poetry and culture. He had, also, translated works from French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, among which included The Wound of the Proper Name, Abdelkébir Khatibi, The Rumor of the air, collected poetry works of Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël is a French writer and poet. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie in 1992 and the Prix Robert Ganzo in 2010....
, Tomb of Ibn Arabi, followed by 99 Stations of Yale, poetry collections and The Malady of Islam, three of Abdelwahab Meddeb
Abdelwahab Meddeb
Abdelwahab Meddeb is an award-winning French-language poet, novelist, essayist, translator, editor, Islamic scholar, cultural critic, political commentator, radio producer, public intellectual and professor of comparative literature at the University of Paris X-Nanterre.- Biography and career...
, A Throw of the Dice poem of Stéphane Mallarmé, published in a bilingual edition in common with Isabella Checcaglini and Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël is a French writer and poet. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie in 1992 and the Prix Robert Ganzo in 2010....
at Ypsilon Éditeur in Paris, in 2007, and Archangélique of Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
in 2010.
He interested in literature, and above all poetry, in his first years at college. His university study was in the Faculty of arts at Fes. Turning toward dialogue, he translates from French language texts into Arabic, and participated in Arabic and International poetry festivals. In addition to his literary work, Bennis has been active on a politico-cultural level. In 1974 he founded the magazine “Al Thaqâfa Al Jadida” (The new Culture), which played an active role in the cultural life of Morocco until it was closed dawn by the Moroccan government in 1984 after unrest in Casablanca. In 1985 together with university professors and writers, he established the publishing house “Dar Toubkal”. He was also the driving force behind the funding of The House of Poetry in Morocco in 1996 and became its president from 1996 to 2003. He addressed in 1999 a call to UNESCO for an International day of poetry. The UNESCO declared Mars 21 as International day of Poetry.
Since 1969 he published about 30 collections of verse and essays in Arabic. Many poems of him was translated and published in French, Spanish, English, Deutsche, Italian, Swedish, Catalonian, Portuguese, Japanese, Slovenian and Macedonian. Several of his collections of poems have already been translated into French, Spanish and Italian and Turkey.
He acted as editor of the Attakafa El Jadids periodical He served on the judging panel for the 2008 International Prize for Arabic Fiction
International Prize for Arabic Fiction
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction is a literary prize managed in association with the Booker Prize Foundation in London, and supported by the Emirates Foundation in Abu Dhabi. The prize is specifically for prose fiction by Arabic authors, along the lines of the Man Booker Prize...
. Bennis has also performed with the Sufi group the Hmadcha Ensemble.
Poetry and language
Mohammed Bennis is a poet of interrogation and adventure. He has been concerned, from the start, about the interrogation on Moroccan poetry and Arab culture in contemporary Morocco. Among his famous essay books is one titled Hadathat al-Sou’al (Modernity of interrogation) (1985) . This interrogation allowed him to open the way towards the modernity and the freedom and became the mark of its poeticsPoetics
Aristotle's Poetics is the earliest-surviving work of dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus on literary theory...
and cultural route. In time, it has taken a radical dimension, to embrace the poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, the culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, the modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
and the freedom
Freedom
-Philosophy:* Free will, the ability to make choices* Political freedom, in the context of the relationship of the individual to the state* Economic freedom-Computing:...
.
Bennis's relationship to French culture is ambivalent. While he rejects the ideology of francophone policy (which for him represents a form of colonizing globalization) , he does hold the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in a very high regard: “As a modern Arab poet, I am committed to French culture and its modernity. The French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
was the home of a poetic revolution and it gave my Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
a poetic strength, more valuable than any of other modern languages.”
Thus he is attached to the modernization of the language, to the freedom of expression based on the fundamental values of modernity. He has followed since youth the tracks of “the poets which made of the human life
Human life
Human life may refer to*in medicine or statistics, the human lifespan*in sociology, the everyday personal life*in philosophy**the conditio humana**discussion of the meaning of life*in jurisprudence, a value protected by human rights...
, in its secrets as in its fears and its illuminations, their space of writing.” His poetry, which grounds itself, at once, on the measure and the trance, is the creative union of two cultures: the ancestral Arabic culture
Arabic culture
Arab culture refers to the culture in Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa, from Morocco to the Persian Gulf. Language, literature, gastronomy, art, architecture, music, spirituality, philosophy, mysticism are all part of the cultural heritage of the pan-Arab world.-Language:The Arabic...
, between the Middle East, Andalusia, Morocco, and the international culture.
Writing
Through the concept of writing, Mohammed Bennis, has become involved in a plural textual practice (poetry, text and essays), where language , subject and society are put in a movement, the one towards the other and the one with the other. The first time in which Mohammed Bennis talks about writing, is in Bayan al-Kitaba (Manifesto of the writing)(1981), and, in Kitabat al-Mahw (Erasure writing)(1990) . The concept refers to European ( Nietzsche , Mallarmé , Derrida and Barthes in mind) and Arabic (especially Abou Tammam, Ibn Arabi, Andalusian-Maghrebian calligraphy and manuscripts), with the purpose, by Bennis, of adapting it to his own ends. For Mohammed Bennis, the writing is a physical act. It is, for him, an “orphan’’, because it “erases the myth of origin.’’ Writing orients the language, according to him, from the communicative function towards the reproduction of words and the interaction between the words, through a transfer of the construction’s rules of the text, on one hand, and according to a replacement of the singular sense by the plural sense, on the other hand. The writing is, in one of the definitions that Mohammed Bennis gives, “a critic of the language , the subject and the society , established in the experience and the practice .” However, “the writing’s subject is material ” . It rises at the time of the practice, neither before nor later. And so it is “a liberating act” , “sensual love opened on the life.” It is even, a “ trance taken by the erasure.” . In this way, the writing abolishes the distance between I, You, He and She. It “eludes the demarcation between poetry and prose”, takes the passage opened between the different textual practices, devotes attention to “the appeal of place” , and urges the reader to change his report with the poem, and make its active reading.From the concept of the writing, Mohammed Bennis grants an importance to his own composition of the rhythm . It is a question of creating a dynamic lyric that places the body and the senses in the center of the poem. From one collection to the other, the forms of his poems and the perspectives which opened its poetic method give evidence of that. Mohammed Bennis writes in this connection: “The construction of the poem, worked by the infinity of the subjectivity, by the stranger and the impure, undergoes unpredictable transformations. And so the poetic word, written in the margin of literature , does not stop destabilizing the syntax , diverting the image , decomposing the metrics and deforming the order saying itself clean, pure. The road of the poem is the one of the impure, where visible and invisible conjugate. This passage of the seed of the drunkenness becomes a reality in the poem. And here is the impure to wear, from now on, the sign of the pure , the beautiful and the stranger .”
And thus the poem, at a time where the culture of consumption and information makes devastation, and where the destructions of the human being triumph, “looks to the parole not at what expresses, but at what creates to me and to you, a renewed birth, human, infinite creation, of the parole.” First task, therefore, of the poem , is to hold up the language to keep in the parole, our parole, its possibility of continuing to live in us and between us. “This is the parole, he writes, which prolongs the parole, human, language of the infinity and the stranger.” The poem , in this sense, is an accompanist who accompanies, with ecstasy , the solitaries in the thirst of their departure unlimitedly towards the beautiful and the free: “what it means the interaction of the breath between the poet and the others in and with the world .”
This is a significant method in the modernization of the language and the Arabic poetry. It is described by the English poet James Kirkup in a letter addressed to Mohammed Bennis : “You allow every word that enters yours poetic consciousness to achieve its full expressive force, and they all manifest themselves as true movements fro; the heart of poetry. You are like a wild bird that sings simply for the joy of singing. You are fascinated by the sound in every word that offers itself to each loving gesture of your poem that allows you to play with words and images echoing your thought. And so you fascinate your readers.”
Kirkup adds, “You use poetic language as if it were some elemental matter which you carve as a sculptor does - the artist who like a blind man is able to feel beneath his chisel the forms he hammers from blocks of marble or granite. And you discover your poem-status without premeditation, by bringing to light and inscribing each line, each verse embedded in the rock of consciousness in the dark of dreams.”
In the same way, the Spanish poet, Antonio Gamoneda writes: “Mohammed Bennis, strange angel who enters in my veins and flows in them like the waters of the instants and you ignite the friendship of light: take me with you to the gardens of the dead, to the place of palms glimpsed between two fugitive abysses. Enter the hole of my chest and show me the gift of the void incandescent and the pupils of animals conceived in crying, those who come to the doors of intoxication to inject us with the passion of light, that substance which birds cross and makes us crazy in the happiness of the sweet contemplation of death.”
The poet in the city
Mohammed Bennis, who crossed the threshold of sixty years, testifies to the role of the poet in the city. Conscious of this role, he adheres, in 1970, to The Writers Union of Morocco, becoming, in 1973, member of its executive board. Bennis was, however, quick to denounce when he observed the dependence of the cultural in politics, he left the association subsequently. . In 1974, he foundedm with Mostafa Mesnaoui, the review Attakafa El Jadida (The new Culture) which played an active role in the cultural life in Morocco. The review was later banned and closed down soon after its thirteenth issue by the Ministry of the interior in January, 1984, during the riots of Casablanca,. The ban on the review brought him to take up the challenge and to create, in 1985, with writers and academic friends, Mohammed Diouri, Abdeltif Menouni and Abdeljalil Nadem, the Publishing house Dar Toubkal, with the aim of contributing to the modernization of the Moroccan culture. Mohammed Bennis was also a founding member, with Mohammed Bentalha, Hassan Nejmi and Salah Bousrif, of the “House of Poetry in Morocco” in 1996, and was the House’s president until 2003. Concerned about the international situation of poetry, he sent, in[[ 1998]], a call to [[Federico Mayor]], Chief Executive Officer of UNESCO, in favor of a World Poetry Day. Thanks to this initiative, on November 15th, 1999, UNESCO decided to proclaim March 21st, World Poetry Day. Ten years later, when politicians seized the “House of Poetry in Morocco”, he published, in January 2010, an open letter titled “Fear of the Meaning”, where he denounced the irresponsible action against the freedom of poets and poetry. He is also one of the signatories of the Democratic Manifesto, published by Moroccan intellectuals on the occasion of the revision of the Moroccan constitution, in answer to the demand of the "Movement of February 20th ".Presence
Mohammed Bennis participates, since the seventies in Arabic poetry festivals, and, from 1980, in numerous International poetry festivals as diverse as in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States, and in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
.
Profiles on his work have appeared in magazines Ars plus, an Albanian Literary journal, nr 8 e diel, 31 August 2003; al Shu'arae review, The poets, a quarterly cultural review of House of Poetry in Ramallah, N 28-29, spring-summer, 2006; and Banipal literary magazine, Magazine of Modern Arab Literature, N 29, London, Summer on 2007. The Associations of writers and Moroccan University researchers have dedicated to his work days of study. In France, he has been awarded, in 2002, the rank of knight in the order of the Arts and Letters. He is also an honorary member of “World Haiku Association” in Japan.
Awards
Mohammed Bennis sees awarding the Morocco Book award in 1993 for his collection Gift of the Void, the French translation (Le Don du vide) of which by Bernard NoëlBernard Noël
Bernard Noël is a French writer and poet. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie in 1992 and the Prix Robert Ganzo in 2010....
in association with the author is appeared in 1999 to L’Escampette Publishing house, in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, and the Italian translation by Fawzi Al Delmi is appeared in 2000, under title He Dono Del Vuoto, in Edzioni San Marco dei Giustiniani, in Genoa, and Luis Miguel Cañada's Spanish translation in 2006, under title El Dono Del Vacio, with Antonio Gamoneda
Antonio Gamoneda
Antonio Gamoneda is a Spanish poet, winner of the Cervantes Prize in 2006.- Biography :Antonio Gamoneda was born in Oviedo, Asturias, on May 30, 1931. His father, named Antonio, was a modernist poet who published only one book, Otra más alta vida in 1919. In 1934, already an orphan, he moved with...
's frontispiece, in Ediciones del directs del mediterraneo in Madrid. For the same collection, in its Italian translation, the Primio Calopezzati of the Mediterranean literature was awarded to him in 2006. The French Le prix Grand Atlas of translation (Rabat) was awarded to him in 2000 for its poetry collection Between two Funerals translates into French by Mostafa Nissabouri and published in L’Escampette Publishing house, in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
in 2003. He also received el Primeo Feronia International for the literature (Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
) in 2007, Al Owais Awards (Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
) for its whole poetic work was awarded in 2008, the Maghreb Culture Prize (Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
) in 2010, and Premio Letterario Internazionale Ceppo Pistoia (the international literary prize Ceppo de Pistoia) in 2011 for its book Il Meditteraneo e la parola, published in 2009 in a translation of Francesca Corrao and Maria Donzelli, at Donzelli Editore in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
Distinctions
In France, he has been awarded, in 2002, the rank of knight in the order of the Arts and Letters. He is also an honorary member of “World Haiku Association” in Japan.Last publications
In Arabic: Huna’ka Tab’ka (Over There you Stay) (poems) in 2007, Kala’m al Jassad (Speech of the body) (texts) in 2010 and Sab’atou Touyour (Seven Birds) (poems) in 2011. He translated L’Archangélique and other poems of Georges BatailleGeorges Bataille
Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...
.
In French: Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël is a French writer and poet. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie in 1992 and the Prix Robert Ganzo in 2010....
's translation, in association with the author, of its collection Le livre de l’amour (The Book of the love), Al Manar Publishing house in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
is appeared with drawings of Dia Azzawi in January, 2008, translation of its collection Feuille de la splendeur (Leaf of Splendour) is appeared in a translation of Mounir Serhani, revised by Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël is a French writer and poet. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie in 1992 and the Prix Robert Ganzo in 2010....
in association with the author is appeared to Les éditions Cadastre8zéro publishing house in rance, and L’ambigu dans les mots (The dark in the words), a collection of poems in common with Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël
Bernard Noël is a French writer and poet. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie in 1992 and the Prix Robert Ganzo in 2010....
, with Joël Leik's drawings is appeared to El Manar Publishing house in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 2011;
in Italian: Il Mediterraneo e la parola, Viaggio, poesia, ospitalita, has translated by Francesca Corrao and Maria Donzelli, Donzelli Editore, Roma
Roma
- Places :Italy* Rome, the capital of Italy, is called Roma in Italian and some other languages* Roma Tre University, a university located in Rome, Italy, and founded in 1992...
, on 2009; in Turkish, Sarap, Türkçesi Metin Findikçi, Kirmizi Yayinlari, Istanbul, on 2009;
in Spanish: Un río entre dos funerales (poemas), translation of Luis Miguel Cañada, Icaria Editorial, Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, on 2010.
Publications in Arabic
- 1969, Makabla l-Kalam (Before words), (poetry);
- 1972, An al-ittéhad wa’l-farah (Something on Oppression and Joy), (poetry);
- 1974, Wajhou’n mouta’wahhijou’n abra imtidadi azzaman (The Eternally Incandescent Face), (poetry);
- 1979, Zahira ash-shi’r al-mu’asir fi l-Maghrib (The Phenomenon of the Contemporary Poetry in Morocco), (study);
- 1980, Fi Ittijah sawti’ka l-amoudi (Toward your Vertical Voice), (poetry);
- 1980, Al-Ism al-arabi’e l-jarih (The Wound of the Own Name) A. Khatibi (translation);
- 1985, Hadathat’u assou’al (The Modernity of Interrogation), (essay);
- 1985, Mawassim’ou al-sharq (Seasons of the East), (poetry);
- 1988, Warakatou l-baha’e (The Leaf of Splendor), (poetry);
- 1989-1991, Ash-sh’r al-Arabi l-hadith, biny’a touhou wa ibda’la’touha (Modern Arabic Poetry, Structures and Mutations), (study, 4 volumes);
- 1992, Hibatou l-faragh (Gift of the Void), (poetry);
- 1994, Kitabou l-houb (The Book of Love), (poetry) (poetic and artistic work in collaboration with the painter Dia Azzawi);
- 1994, Kitanba’tu l-Mah’ou’e (The Writing of Effacement), (Texts on poetry and modernity);
- 1995, Kitabou l-houb (The Book of Love), (poetry);
- 1996, Al- Makanou l-wathani (The Pagan Place), (poetry);
- 1996, Chataha’t li’montassafi annahar (Trances for the Midday), (Texts);
- 1997, Al-Ghourfatou l-fa’righa (The Empty Room), (poetry), Jacques Ancet (translation);
- 1998, Hassissou l-hawa’e (Whisper of the Air), collected poetry collections of Bernard NoëlBernard NoëlBernard Noël is a French writer and poet. He received the Grand Prix national de la poésie in 1992 and the Prix Robert Ganzo in 2010....
(translation); - 1998, Al-Oubou’r ila dhifa’f zarka’e (Crossing to the Blue Shores), (Texts);
- 1999, Nabidh, (Wine) (two series of poems, bilingual edition: Arabic-French and Arabic-Spanish);
- 1999, Qa’br ibn Arabi yali’h aya’e (Tomb of Ibn Arabi Followed by 99 Stations of Yale), two poetry collections of Abdelawahab Meddeb (translation);
- 2000, Nahr’un bay’na jana’zatai’n (A River between two Funerals), (poetry);
- 2002, Al-A’amalou l-chi’ria (Poetry works), (2 volumes);
- 2002, Al-Islam assia’si (The Malady of Islam) of Abdelwahab Meddeb (translation collaborating with the author);
- 2003, Nabidh, (Wine), (poetry);
- 2004, Al-Hadatha l-ma’atouba (A Broken down Modernity) (cultural diary);
- 2006, Al- Haq fi Achi’ir (Right to poetry), (essays);
- 2007, Hounaka tabk’a (Over there you Stay), (poetry);
- 2007, Rami’atou nard (A Throw of Dice), poem of Stéphane Mallarmé (translation);
- 2010, Al-Kodossi (The Archangélique), collection of poems of Georges Bataille (translation);
- 2010, Kalamou l-jassad (Speech of the Body),(Texts);
- 2011, Sab’atou touyour (Seven Birds), (poetry).
Some translations in English
- ’'Contemporary North Africa, Issues of Development & Integration, Edited by Halim Barakat, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1985;
- ’’Modern Arabic Poetry’’, an anthology, Salma Khadra Jayyussi, University Press, New York, 1987;
- ’’The New African Poetry’’: an anthology, Tanure Ojaide and Tijan M. Sallah, editors, Lynne Rienner Publishers, USA, 1999;
- ’’A Crack in the wall, New Arab Poetry, Margaret Obank & Samuel Shimon, SAQI Books, London, 2001;
- ’’Soft Target, Jane Lewis’’, New York, U.S.A, 2006;
- ’’Language for a new century’’, contemporary poetry from the Middle East, Asia, And Beyond, Edited Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal, and Ravi Shankar, W.W Norton & Company, New York, London 2008.
Others publications in
Banipal’sMagazine Modern Arab Literature (London)‘Three Poems: Bells, The Road to Jerusalem, Between Silence and Sun’, poems, translated by Noel Abdulahad, 2, 56-57; ‘Poems from Hieroglyphics’, ‘Rose of Dust’, translated by Anton Shammas, 5, 21-24; subject of ‘Mohammed Bennis, The free-floating anxiety of existence’ by Subhi Hadidi, 5, 22-23; ‘Selected Poems from the Gift of the Void: Doubts; Place; Silence; Frivolity; Impurity; Blindness; Trance; Lady; Palm; Wish’, translated by James Kirkup, 5, 24-25; ‘1945-2001 Zefzaf – a grand man of Moroccan and Arab letters’, 12, 26; ‘Desert on the brink of light’, translated by James Kirkup, 12, 56-59; ‘Ten poems: Faraway; A Blind Friend; Down there two Wingbeats; Perhaps; Fear; Apparition; Colours; One Drop; One Night and its Dead’, translated by James Kirkup, 19, 20-31; interviewed by Camilo Gomez-Rivas, 29, 114-23; ‘Gift of the Void: Impossible; View; Path; Encounter; Writing; She; Straying; Shades; Safekeeping; Examining; Women; Elsewhere; Wavering; Words; Travel; Over There You Stay: Stones Alone; The Night of the Ruby: Tremor; Red Growing; Road of Fire; Creation; Lord of the Ruby; Surfaces; Storefront’, translated by Camilo Gomez-Rivas, 29, 124-37; The power of his resistance’, translated by Youssef Rakha, 33, 53-55.
The Literary Review (USA) North Africa: Literary Crossroads, Vol. 41 No.2, 1998
External links
- Keeping the Language Alive
Interview by Camilo Gomez-Rivas, Banipal, Issue 29, Summer, 2007.
http://www.banipal.co.uk/selections/56/80/mohammed_bennis/
http://www.banipal.co.uk/selections/19/141/mohammed_bennis/
- A Throw of the Dice poem of Stéphane Mallarmé, published in a bilingual edition in common with Isabella Checcaglini and Bernard Noël at Ypsilon Éditeur in Paris, in 2007
http://www.ypsilonediteur.com/fiche.php?id=74
- Mohammed Bennis: The Free-Floating Anxiety of Existence
By Subhi Hadidi.
http://www.jehat.com/Jehaat/en/.../Mohammed-Bennis.htm - En cache - Pages similaires
- Bennis's selected haihu
http://www.worldhaiku.net/poetry/...bennis/m.bennis.htm
- The Book of Love (in French)
http://www.editmanar.com/auteurs/Livre%20de%20lamour.htm