Amjad Nasser ’ s Short Poem ’ s Stylistic Composition

The present study explores the stylistic composition of Amjad Nasser’s short poem. The analysis covers the features of the experience, the poet’s awareness of its forms and his motivations. It is found that the poet is conscious of the composition of the genre, which has its own function and beauty, and a technical necessity representing a stylistic stage of his poetry. Such poetic revolutionizing is a self-attempt experience to diversify the poetic shape, mixed with human and artistic factors which express rebellion and rejection and prefer the stylistic composition of the short poem. He is also affected by the heritage of Arab and Western modernism. It is also found that the poet builds his short poem on a set of foundations and techniques, such as intensity, irony, satire, circular construction, connotation, flash, omission, poetic concentration, squeezed language, ambiguity, intertextuality, opening, etc.


Introduction
Amjad Nasser's experience of the short poem represents a conscious practise of a genre with its own function and beauties but does not come by chance or due to his language or imagination incompetence.He has already practised the long poem, rhythmic poem, prose poem, biography, journal and journey literature, and he is about to start writing novels.Therefore, for him, the short poem represents an artistic stage of his poetry to make a unique quantum leap and special significance.Not only does it take place in the context of the development of his own poetic experience, but also within the advancement of the modern Arab prose poem, in general.Such shifts, undoubtedly, are witnessed by most of the poets who see renewal as a desired stylistic inevitability.For him, the short poem should be a genre with a function not achieved by other genres like long poems (or novels).Nasser does not pay much attention to the short poem in his first six poetry collections: 1) Praise for Another Café (1979) 2) Since Gilead Climbed the Mountain (1981) 3) Isolation Shepherds (1986) 4) Advent of Outsiders (1990) 5) Whoever Sees You Feels Delighted (1994) 6) Ascent of Breaths (1997) There are samples of such a poem in these collections, like Harvest (Nasser 2008, p.The ears of wheat take off their cabs for the quern stones. Places (Nasser 2008, 101) We keep in the places Which pay a farewell to us for the dullness of suitcases Memorial photos taken with the family Photos with fugitive colours A family flourished with softness the dull of suitcases And unorganized mail This is the remainder of mothers." Or another few poems such as Loneliness (Nasser 2008, 102) ; Shoes (Nasser 2008, 136) ;Homeland (Nasser 2008, 144); O Howdahs (Nasser 2008, 145); Copper's Baa (Nasser 2008, 146).
All the above are close to the short poem, as if they were trial texts practised modestly by Nasser.He continued this way with his next collection Isolation Shepherds (1986) to find for instance: [King] Karba'ilWatar (Nasser 2008, 169); Drums (Nasser 2008, 180).

Sample of Nasser's Short Poems
In his collection Advent of Outsiders (1990), short poem models are found, such as: Lion (Nasser 2008, 259); Another Penelope (Nasser 2008, 262); Kings of Uncertainty (Nasser 2008, 268).When reaching Whenever He Saw a Sign (1995)(1996)(1997), a radical change is uncovered towards the short poem experience with special consciousness of the genre nature and constructionist, objective and rhythmic features.He employs such a type of poems in the collection which is relatively recent responding to following factors: 1) It is a self-attempt to diversify the poetic shape, as well as master the art by proving the ability to write in different poetry genres.This reflects how the poet's psyche is worried, active and volatile.He practises metrical poetry, prose poems, biography, essay and journey literature.
2) Nasser is inspired by the Arab literary heritage and possesses factors of interaction and similarity with the mystical thought and its creative accomplishment, especially in the texts of ranks and statuses achieved by prominent mystics like Al-Hallaj and Al-Nifri.There are also human and artistic factors common with tramps, along with the nature of the life of homelessness and rejection, in order to express their material and psychological experiences mainly in the stylistic composition of the short poem.
3) Nasser is affected by the Arab and Western heritage, in terms of short poem experiences, as is the case with Adonis at the Arab level, conceptualists as well as and Lorca, Ritsos and Yasuda at the global level.
4) Nasser is in direct contact with the Japanese Haiku poem.He titles the third poem of the Whenever He Saw a Sign Collection Haiku Breaths.
5) Finally, Nasser lives under artistic, social and technical atmospheres where there are literary and artistic genres of intensity and of briefness in narrative and singing.On the other hand, social relations shrank in SMS, along with change in the standards of beauty and search for everything that is light and elegant.
For instance, as a fat woman or man has become unattractive, lengthy or multi-part works or generation novels do not appeal for people.Today's approach is focused on 'a poem that is lighter and richer' (Al-Kubeissi 1992, 112-200), bearing in mind the dominance of IT, telecommunication and globalization.
All the above should be of concern to a poet who lives in a very sophisticated industrialized capital and works in an occupation that is loaded with difficulties, sequences of anxiety and non-stop change.
Nasser founded his poetic collection Whenever He Saw a Sign on what is called short poem strategies, which seem to some extent preferred by and settled for a number of post-modernism poets.They are similar to the developments in the narrative forms like the short story and very short story.They can be featured by stability, not because they constitute a stage of outset, ending and specific details, but it is just a relative description, although some critics try to identify stylistic features for the short poem world, as EzzeddinIsma'il does in his Arab Contemporary Poetry: Stylistic and Moral Issues and Phenomena (1966).What makes me cautious is the persistence of change possibilities in the internal and external construction of such a poetry genre, which is not the objective of the study.Here, the main purpose is to examine Amjad Nasser's short poem.
The title of Nasser's divan Whenever He Saw a Sign involves the reader in the short poem atmosphere by the eloquent omission of the main clause in the conditional sentence, pre-posing the conditional device and verb.The language structure represents a type of brevity as a mark of the very divan's form and content.The title itself introduces the text and paves the way for interpretations which "include that complicated network of overlapping references.In other words, the title is like an entrance which connects the internal with the external and the real with the imaginary (Al-Adwani 2002, 25).
In the signal composition of the title elements with reference to paratext, the following can be said (Hamdawi 1997 105): 'Whenever' is a continuing language activity indicating the poet's persistent moving, search and concern towards coming times and spaces.
'Saw' (in Arabic) is related to the past and condition within the continuing 'whenever', indicating an act that discards the past and gains an identity shift.
'Sign' is the very creation of language and a new coinage of the [Arabic] stem 'know' in contrast with 'ignore'.It is also parallel in object harmony with the conditional verb 'saw' although it is unknown, in order to fit with an omitted main clause and make a context of parallelism with "the creative one who saw" (and the receiver who looks for interpretations in the main clause).As the title "comes with different levels to be more serious than holding entrances to the texts, it grants the text its entity, by naming it and taking it out of the space of the mind to the space of what is known.The text actually can only gain entity by the title (Hussein 2007, 18).
With regard to the title's correlation with close signs, there is the dedication "To Fedha, Going to Cheer the Soil" (Nasser 2008, 385) to unfold the presence-absence controversy.Fedha is completely present in a previous work when the dedication of the Advent of Outsiders collection says: "To Mohammad, Fedha and Their Nine" (Nasser 2008, 237).
The connections of the title 'Whenever He Saw a Sign' with the poems themselves are seen in the intention of omission as an opening to the short poem type.They depend on a large number of omitted elements as a major feature of the short poem composition, for the structure is intense and enjoys a squeezed language."Each word in this type of poetry is an experience by itself (Yasuda 1999, 65).

Nasser and Arabic language
As Nasser's short poems indicate a great deal of intensity and squeezed language, they are highly ambiguous and focused, attributed to the practice of linguistic and metaphorical deviations which are often experienced and emotional.For instance, one finds in Nasser (2008, 387): To whom If not to my humiliator

Holders of star and flute
Silk beats, black, in the lodgings of breakup?
To whom, if not for the marcher's light on the land is cane pierced by The breaths of night awake?
The structural deviation makes the conditional clause "If not to my humiliator

Holders of star and flute" is interrupted by the interrogative
To whom Silk beats, black, in the lodgings of breakup"?
The poet practices further of his artistic authority in poetry concentration by means of the same structural style (interrogative interrupted by a conditional sentence).As for the artistic ambiguity which pushes the receiver for more interpretive effort, he leans on colourless shades of intertextuality with poet Abul-Ala' Al-Ma'arri's line: "To whom belong the graves of Aad folks' time."Such an intertextual reference is also reflected in "the marchers on the land" with Al-Ma'arri's: "Neither is helpful in my sect and faith The lamenting of a weeper nor the chanting of a warbler My pal, lightly tread I suppose the earth surface is but made of those corpses." This intertextuality enlightens the overall thought of the poem.Grief is generated by the lexis of 'night', 'star', 'black' and 'night awake', to be added to the indication of 'flute', 'pulsation', 'breakup' and 'breaths'.
The foundations on which Nasser's short poems are built constitute major features of an obsession of the change exhausting poets unsatisfied with literally repeating others' experiences.They attempt, instead, to empathize and employ them to compose artistic references to depart from to broader horizons of poetry renewal -a responsibility they have shouldered.According to Nasser (2003, 58-59) "Although we agree that the previous pioneers Al-Siyyab, Adonis, Abdul-Sabour, Darwish, Hijazi, Danqal, AfeefiMatar, etc. made great achievements, the next generations repeated and reproduced their experiences to the extent that poetry is called 'free poetry classicism'.Thus, we find it necessary to revive poetry and give up direct replication of the pioneers' and previous generations' experiences.
We have stopped, contemplated on the issue and decided to gain new poetry."Thatis why Nasser leads the short poem adventure after passing by the prose poem boundaries.

Naseer's Culture and Language Framework
Nasser's broad cultural framework in practicing the short poem undoubtedly indicates that such an attempt relies on the poet's confidence in the receiver's/reader's aesthetic experience and the poet's aesthetic delivery to be shared by the reader."The reader is not doing a negative job in the artistic communication process just as a receiver, but they play an extremely positive and dynamic role.The reader intervenes in creating the poem from its initial perception, practising their effectiveness actively from the inside of the poet.The poet arranges their constructions on the basis of the reading assumptions" (Fadhl 1994, 74).
Among the top assumptions are metaphor extension with squeezed language and constant thought in the short poem, in addition to the reading and interpretive boundaries determined by certain factors in the context of text reception.
In this regard, one of Nasser's techniques is the opening line of the short poem, called Matla' in the terms of old criticism.Abu-Hilal (died in 395H) referred to the significance of the beginning, by saying: "O writers, make good openings, as they are signs of eloquence (Al-Askari 1952, 431).
With reference to the above attempt to create an aesthetic communication with the reader and involve them in the text production, the poet sometimes starts with an interrogative, as in the previous poem or other short ones like: Pulsation (Nasser 2008, 388) How can, I who have only touched the hand Or perhaps its memory on the table , Claim connection other than with the emotions not found in the heart?
Too much for me among the powerful To dash just the beat Placing a couple of cane feet amidst their blowing.
There is also A Mother to a Child poem (Nasser 2008, 402): Another poem is Rose Shadow (Nasser 2008, 425), inspired by Borges: Is the inside opposite the outside?
Wind violence?
Tone of God's name on the tongue of the totally hopeless?
That's the mount I ascended, I do not know when and how When a Baptist knew I was called John, he told me Moses threw his rod here, and there was no moving snake But a decayed piece of wood He looked from the barn summit And saw blood covering the valley Is it the coin that made the blind suffer from insomnia in the night which only resembles his day at the level of yellow?
Is it the dagger

Shriek
Or shirt whose buttons drop out of pain?
Is it the hand waving at pedestrians born of, and returning to, dust with marks on fronts Scars on clavicles?
Or could it be these cities seen by nobody: Buenos Aires of Borges

Shiraz of Saadi
Venice of Italo Calvino

Tanger of Mohammad Shukri
Or perhaps the rose shadow A string of clotted blood Rift of screen?
On the one hand, in spite of the relatively lengthy text in terms of the short poem features, the interrogative structure from the outset to the end contracts the space of the text and makes the interrogative construction a basic centre which returns it to the genre.On the other hand, the text's poetic coherence and circular emotional composition make it of a thematic block of straightforward characteristics and dimensions.The text paves the way for the 'prophecy' of the poet/artist.There are significant signs to prove that, from the mystical sign as an opening to different views of Prophet Moses with his rod to the mount.There is also the highly ambiguous and symbolic story of Prophet Joseph with his blind father Jacob as "His eyes whitened and he became full of grief" (Quran 12:84).
Then comes the shirt of Joseph: "Take my shirt and throw it at my father's face so his eyesight would return" (Quran 12:93).
Between Jacob and Joseph's brothers, Nasser combines the elements of narrative intensity with the poet's vision and empathy of the event and its symbols.For instance, other than the shirt, there are the dagger, shriek and blood: "They put fake blood on his shirt.He said: 'Truly, yourselves tempted you to do something.So, beautiful patience [is required].Allah is the one needed for help for what you claim'" (Quran 12:18).There is also the coin that made the blind suffer from insomnia in the night, referring to the sale of Prophet Joseph: "They sold him for a low price -few dirhams -and they were disinterested in having him" (Quran 12:20).
In addition, the theme of estrangement is present: "For pedestrians born of, and returning to, dust These are the cities seen by nobody" Furthermore, the meaning of prophethood and its suffering is projected to models of Arab and global creativity.Names like Borges, Saadi of Shiraz, Mohammad Shukri and Italo Calvino indicate Nasser's perspective, by closing the text with an intertextuality to the beginning of the Chapter of Joseph: "I have seen eleven planets, the sun and moon prostrating themselves to me" (Quran 12:4).This is the meaning of the 'rift of screen' by closing the text circle, on the one hand, and opening to visional horizons/dream/prophecy, on the other.
Nasser's short poem experience represents a conscious practice of a poetry genre, which he sees with a special function and beauties.It did not start by chance or depletion of his language or imagination competence.Nasser practised the long poem, rhythmic poem, prose poem, biography, journal and journey literature and he is about to begin writing novels.Thus, it can be argued that, for him, the short poem constituted an artistic stage of his poetry which may continue or, perhaps, go through some shifts.It actually took place in the divan after Whenever He Saw a Sign, which is Life as Occasional Narrative of 2004, in which he shifted to another poetic position.He made "a specially significant quantum leap not only by developing Nasser's personal poetic experience, but also modern Arab prose poem in general" (Nasser 2008, 439).
It is needless to say that such shifts are natural for most of the poets who consider renewal artistically inevitable and an end by itself.For example, while investigating Ibrahim Nassrallh's short poem, Ihsan Abbas (2006, 338) describes such a situation by saying" With Ibrahim, the short poem took a new dimension when given an exclusive one or more divans, but without happening out of boredom of the long poem Ibrahim mastered in Nu'man Restores His Colour, The River Boy and the General and other divans.His shift from poetry to novel indicates that the long form is not an obstacle to his creativity.Therefore, the short poem, for him, should be a form which performs a function not done by other long poetry (or novel) genres".

Discussion
It seems that this form and that function which can be seen in Nasser's short poems push the critic to reconsider the question of poetry and reception and search for what is called 'reader's role in text'.We are facing a type of short poems like what is called by some 'the flash poem', artistically based on one or more short sentences.Such a construction refers to the expectation of the reader's participation in phrasing the text itself, without being limited to their interpretive role as is the case in the reception of poems of a different nature.In addition, in such samples one finds a great deal of messing with language relations as well as an amazing combination of meaning like verbal hallucination.This phenomenon is called in modernism -especially by Adonis -'language explosion' and by Roland Barthes 'writing degree zero'.It requires great effort by the reader in reception and attainment of a kind of balance when practising their right of comprehending the aesthetic experience and approaching what is called 'meaning' in a way or another.Perhaps due to the poet's fear of not realizing such a balance in the reader-text formula, it is noted that Nasser only rarely uses flash poems.They need high competence, like the following: 1. Trust (Nasser 2008, 396) I did not see who restored it But I heard mild steps On the rim of night, and in the morning, I found on the lobby's tiles A snake's leather and a white feather.
2. Amulet (Nasser 2008, 397) I turned mad when the night spread.So, I began to recall my fellow jinn and provide my idols with a wealth of celebrative barley.My amulet saw the sun, but he neither found a burn on an edge of your dress nor stitched the husband's doll with a pin.
3. Impact (Nasser 2008, 406) No, it is not the blue bruise on your upper lip which will tell the guards about me, but the Sumerian lute's groan under your clothes.
4. Appearance (Nasser 2008, 418) The sign appears to those who leave

It leads the blind to what their hands see
And grants the unmindful the rights of wakefulness.
Preservation (Nasser 2008, 422) In your neck, you hold the word used by mothers.They get up with hands abraded by prayers and plates, on the earth gravity, while you do not know what protected you all this time.
6. Clue (Nasser 2008, 423)   The blind knows he is in your protection

Smell
Nor whish directed him But the light which flowed to His dark eyeholes.
The competence mentioned above is not limited to the interpretive side, but also to that which can be called aesthetic; i.e., dependent on the receiver's experience in the community which has produced the work of art."The art production can be viewed as an expression of the group's conventions and traditions, but not a self-expression of an individual's mood" (Inglis and Hughson 2007, 44) as stated by the sociology of art studies.Here, the receiver's experience is so important, especially as we are facing new short poem techniques, like intensity, irony, satire, circular construction, connotation, etc.This experience is thought to be superficial to the Arab reader.The Arab aesthetic taste only tried such literary genres, like the novella, very short story, short poem and very short poem at the final stages of modernism and then what is called post-modernism.Thus, it is necessary for literary criticism to expose the short poem aesthetics and its intellectual and content subjects.It is particularly noteworthy that it is written by a number of poets known for their intellectual depth, like Adonis.
When contemplating on some short poem extracts from a technical perspective, it means one looks for signs of renewal and change or even poetic revolutionizing, which can be common among some texts and unique in others.An example could be taken from the Haiku Breaths poem (Nasser 2008, 389), which can be considered a set of short (flash) poems gathered in one poem, or as one poem:

I
The smell which emanates from the foot of virginity Adorned me with the scarf so I started to give commands and prohibitions.The above five stanzas, or rather poems, are written with lexis, rhythm and connotation in a mystical sense loaded with poeticalness as a power of tone and portrayal.Let us reflect on the rhythm power of stanza II in 'So they cured it.'

Your remedial breaths
Touched the gentle air So they cured it.
The Arabic voiceless sounds and syllables also help in creating a tranquil timbre on which the poet relies for the softness of meaning and smoothness of statement, such as 'breaths' 'touched', 'remedial', 'air' and 'gentle'.Then comes the timbre of pause in 'So they cured it', to find an atmosphere of silence as an ending to the string of quiet and smoothness as well as reflect the patient's suffering and moans which suddenly die to make him comfortable, as they are cured by the physician's hand.The circle is completed with a nominal construction of the sentence, for it is the stoppage of breaths along with the ending and completion of structure in the sentence.
Then, comes the other half with a new nominal construction "It was themselves Which made me ill."As a result, the circle of the stanza/short poem is complete with a world made of poet, gentle air and beloved female as shown in figure 1.: In other words, the world is only me and you and what is between us is gentle air, which is the substance of life and tool for survival.Due to the stanza's independent entity as well as the unity of the synthetic, rhythmic and thematic composition, it is argued that each stanza is a poem by itself.
What is brilliant about the stanzas of Nasser's Haiku breaths is the ability to rebuild the mystical text according to the perspectives of poetic modernism.He employs the mystical language intensity, shades of its symbolic lexis and, even occasionally, its special terminology.
The connection between Nasser and the mystical heritage is especially present in his thought, culture and literary production.This knowledge empowers him to make his visionary dreams and meaning momentum, as if it were the language of mystical states and positions which enable the poet to express his passion and suffering in raising his relationship with the beloved woman/body, place/homeland or abstract loved female, all free of time and space restrictions.It takes place according to mystical manifestations in which mix fears of man (who is preoccupied by the desert smell and eats under the roof of cement forests), who departed his homeland.So, the homeland haunted him with its alleyways, roads, bus stops, factories, cities, trees and villages.
All such thematic confusions will be actually mobilized in short poems of a dream language like daydreaming.According to Nasser, "They make us what we wish to be, and we get what we fancy, even for a particular moment.I lived long in daydreams.In fact, daydreams were my first poetic practice" (Awad and Nasser 2010).
The poetry which constitutes a dream vision is also momentum and ecstasy in traditional mystical terms and surreal manifestations in modernist terms and determinants.For example, in the stanza below:

III
A hand with the Throne Owner And the other holds the scepter.
The entire universe Is a whoop and a string of pain?
There are a deep intellectual blend and wobbling between several mixed dimensions in the way of paradoxical interpretations.Could a political reading be provided for a text which looks far away from politics?Al-Hallaj once said: "You and what you worship are below my feet."So, when they dug, they found gold below their feet.
The indefinite 'hand' recalls moral connections ranging between the senses of the unknown and seeking power with the Throne Owner.This depicts a specific degree of achieving the ego/authority by employing Pharaoh's way "I am your Supreme Lord."This interpretation is supported by the mention of scepter as an indicator of grandeur and control in the other hand.The result is that Poet gentle air beloved female "The entire universe Is a whoop and a string of pain"?
It is also acceptable to take a different approach to interpret the text.A sign of mystical adoration can be viewed with mysticism in the love of God.Here, the 'hand with the Throne Owner' is understood in an aesthetic extension linking the creation with the Creator.The hand which 'holds the scepter' implies the possession of beauty -a crown of meaning.When this beauty/authority interacts with the elements of the world/universe, it becomes almost incomprehensible and represented in 'a whoop and a string of pain.'The whoop refers to the desire resulting from falling under the authority of beauty, while the string of pain is something we always seek.The interpretation of such texts constitutes a risk with uncalculated results.A brave interpreter is the one who admits that the literary meaning is infinite and deferred, not in the deconstructive sense, but in the knowledgebased one of close and open interpretations at the same time.In other words, the interpretation is correct and complete, unless another comes to open it to new horizons of meaning.Theorists of interpretation argue that There is not a single interpretation, and there is no better approach.There are always relations and horizons to melt in each other.There is always change in targets, change in looking at words and joy for the discovery and the shift from a previous discovery (Nassef 2000, 72).

Conclusion
Nasser employs this poetic renewal or revolutionizing while especially conscious of the nature as well as the constructionist, objective and rhythmic features of the genre.He responds to a set of factors, namely: a self-attempt to diversify the poetic form; mastering art by proving his ability to write in different poetic genres; gaining inspiration from Arab literary heritage; and possessing aspects of interaction and similarity with the mystical thought and its creative accomplishment.There are also human and artistic factors common with categories like tramps, along with the nature of the life of homelessness and rejection, in order to express their material and psychological experiences mainly in the stylistic composition of the short poem.He is also affected by the heritage of Arab and Western modernism with reference to the short poem, along with his direct contact with the Japanese Haiku poem.Finally, Nasser lives under artistic, social and technical atmospheres where there are literary and artistic genres of intensity and briefness of narrative and singing, as well as change in the standards of beauty and fever of search for everything that is light and elegant.
He builds his short poem on a set of foundations and techniques, such as intensity, irony, satire, circular construction, connotation, flash, omission, poetic concentration, squeezed language, ambiguity, intertextuality, opening, etc.That pushes a critic to reconsider the question of 'poetry and reception' and look for what is called 'reader's role in the text' in criticism terms.There is, in particular, a type of short poems similar to what is called by some 'flash poem', whose stylistic composition stands on one or few short sentences.Such a structure predicts the reader's participation not only in phrasing and interpreting the text itself, but also requires aesthetic competence by the 'participant receiver'.Here, the receiver's experience in the community which has produced the work of art is sought, especially when facing new short poem techniques.
from the 5th Circle And its thigh glitters like a spear Rakeen would have slept with one eye And in the other eye did your hands gain of your fabulous flying over winter and summer A sign -Does it have other than what it gave the ancestors?They became youth and old And made lonely the coffin.
with its guidance occupied But what touched me with its breaths And made me a shadow.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Tools of survival in Nasser poem These are the powers of the text, called Open Work in criticism terms.According to UmbertoEco (2001, 16):" Each work of art, even a complete and closed one in its meticulously made composition, is open at least in being interpreted in different ways.Our enjoyment of a work of art is attributed to what we give in interpretation and implementation as well as its revival in an original framework."Itcan be claimed that such interpretive openness and riches are dominant features, not only in Nasser's poetry, but in modernism poetry, in general.Such openness turns out clearly in the deep interpretation of the texts loaded with highly connotative mystical power, as is the case in Al-Nafri's stances and addresses.For example, in The Position of Closeness, he says: "He stopped to discuss closeness and said: "There is nothing of me further from something And there is nothing of me closer from something Except my rule of proving closeness and remoteness"."(Al-Nafri, 2)