Mubarak Ouassat on the width of poetry and where in his work you can find him

This possibly explains my keenness at that stage to publish in Al-Thaqafa Al-Jadida and Mawaqif, alongside other magazines and cultural supplements.

The second part of your question is: 'Why poetry and not something else?' In reality, I also wrote short stories alongside poetry.

But I found in poetry a special charm that manifests in its expressive density and its creative linguistic and imaginative nature. Even short stories or novels do not attract me unless their texts are imbued with real poetic richness.

On Moderation

You published your first collection, On the Steps of Deep Waters, in 1990, then reissued it with two other collections ten years later. Why did you delay publishing the other two collections, and why did you include the first one with them? Is the delay a sign of necessary moderation in writing and necessary deliberation in publishing?

The matter of publishing the mentioned collections did not follow any pre-planned schedule on my part.

It so happened that Dar Toubqal suggested one day that I quickly publish a collection of mine to be included in their exhibits at an upcoming book fair in Casablanca. I gathered my poems that I could easily find without much searching, and they were printed quickly.

I did not see that collection from the time I sent the handwritten pages until it became a printed book, as there was no email back then. Thus, when I was about to publish the next two collections, I included the first one, printed under my supervision this time.

I attended Dar Okaz and reviewed the proof. I am indeed moderate; I did not have a strong desire to write, contenting myself with reading and daily life concerns.

You are from the '80s Generation, where do you find your poetic experience within Moroccan poetry?

It is one experience among others, of course. Since you mentioned the 80s Generation, I read—irregularly and without serious follow-up—many poets from that generation.

If you want names, I have admired the poetic texts of Ahmed Barakat, Mohamed Aziz Al-Hossaini, Mohamed Al-Saber, Mohamed Boudaouik, Idris Issa, and Zahra Al-Mansouri, who seems to have not published poetry for many years, along with some other poets.

There are, of course, also illustrious names from other generations whose works I read with admiration.

Beyond that, I do not seek to compare my poetic experience with those of other poets, whether they belong to the 80s Generation or others, as this requires comparative theoretical readings, and it is the role of criticism to undertake such readings.

Horizons

With the development of communication, translation, and reading in other languages, is pre-existing affiliation with a specific geography still a valid criterion for determining poetic affiliation and personal poetic identity? For example, do you feel today that you are solely a Moroccan poet?

Of course not. Being Moroccan does not prevent me from belonging to broader horizons. Thus, I feel Maghrebi, Arab, African, and human at the beginning and end of it all. This is generally speaking, of course.

Since I read poets from around the world, primarily in French and English, and read Arabic and translated poetry, and sometimes translated poems by European poets or others whose work I find appealing, this leads to a logical and lived result for me: I might read a poet from Portugal, for example, whose poetry is closer to me than what is written by someone I know and meet occasionally in a café.

In short, I read works by Moroccans and non-Moroccans, in Arabic and other languages, and I certainly hope that what I write retains literary value even when translated into other languages. Poetry does not recognise narrow identities and geographical boundaries.

In critical follow-ups on your poetry, there is a recurring idea that your poetry contains modern surrealism and sometimes uses narrative and storytelling. Where do these descriptions come from, and how do you see your poetry?

Undoubtedly, my poems sometimes feature dreamlike atmospheres and images stemming from a surreal imagination, but these atmospheres and images are not entirely arbitrary.

They are somewhat related, whether closely or distantly, vaguely or slightly transparently, to my person and my life and inner world.

Let's take, for example, this excerpt from a poem titled Behind My Window included in my first collection On the Steps of Deep Waters:

I listen to the sorrows of a lonely wave

Soon I will go out for a walk

My knee will have the shape of a flame

I am not afraid of the saliva of lanterns

Nor the cough of wolves

Behind the elegant façades.

Certainly, the images are surreal in nature … But this passage gives us an initial definition of a certain person, who is first and foremost a poet, as well as being neither submissive nor compliant.

Here's a second excerpt from a poem, in the same collection, titled The Dust Tent:

Once again, the breaking boats begin to stitch the river mouths with their golden needles, while autumn weaves question marks on the faces of passersby! I foresee grim prophecies in the eyes of a dying dove, and vague news broadcast by the foam radio about my even vaguer fate…

In this passage, there are certainly surreal poetic images … but it also has a somewhat grim or tragic background - if we simplify and describe it emotionally - testifying to the specificities of its author's experience at a certain stage, and indeed the specificities of the society he lived in during the 1970s and 80s.

Regarding the utilisation of narrative and storytelling sometimes, this seems positive to me if done intelligently and delicately.

If we go back to ancient Arabic poetry, we find stories interwoven in many poems of the pre-Islamic poets and the poets of the Umayyad and Abbasid eras.

On the other hand, we should not forget that many Western writers called for writing that disregards the distinctions between literary genres.

As for me, I sometimes allow myself the freedom to utilise narrative and storytelling in poetic writing, but if it is a story, I will write it as a story, not as a poem, and that's obvious.

Regarding my personal view of my poetry, I will suffice with a general answer: I believe my poetry is closely related to my personal and social experience in life, and my personal poetic culture has a strong impact on shaping its features. My aim is to write innovative poetry, exploring different styles of writing.

And now a question with a specific reference to one of your poems, the first in of the collection, A Butterfly of Hydrogen. In it, we read:

I was about to drown in the simple sea

When I was saved by metrical sailors

I was condemned to wander

As my poetic house

Had been swept away by the waves

And I, with the help of my tigers,

Must rebuild it again."

Is this image a summary of your work within your poetic workshop?

This is a playful poem, first and foremost. It starts from a lived experience, going back to my tenth year when I nearly drowned in the sea but managed to survive.

I imagined that the sea I almost perished in was called 'the simple sea,' and therefore, the rescuing swimmers had to be prosaists as well as sailors. Since that sea failed to eliminate me, it swept away my house, so I must rebuild my residence, which should be a poetic house, in harmony with the other elements of the poem.

Since the 'I' is mythologised as you see, it has tigers to help it rebuild. One could say that the tigers here represent the forces of imagination, and the completed poem urges the search for another.

What is written has been completed and finished, thus becoming independent of the self, requiring the creation of a new residence, i.e., a new poem, and so on.

In the collection A Butterfly of Hydrogen, as well as A Man Smiling at the Birds, it seemed that you begin or expand a space for the self, while simultaneously distancing yourself somewhat from the first three collections. How do you see this, and can the poet or parts of their biography be found in their poetry, as is the case with novelists, for instance, or does poetry conceal this within the game of metaphors?

In my collections A Butterfly of Hydrogen and A Man Smiling at the Birds, and even in my latest collection so far, Eyes That Have Travelled So Much, there is indeed a greater presence of the self. This presence was somewhat there in the first three collections, but in a more subdued manner.

Sometimes, parts of the poet's biography can be found in some of their poems, but their formulation is not direct, as if one views biographical scenes through prisms that cast wondrous, unexpected forms upon them.

Adding to this is the fact that a person's dreams also enter their biography, undoubtedly making that biography an important source for poetic writing, though the elements are not presented in their raw state. Of course, my intention was not to write a documentary autobiography through my poetry, yet my writings are linked to me and my experiences, both small and large.

The issue of autobiography in poetic writing presents itself more strongly regarding my collection A Man Smiling at the Birds. This collection represents for me a realistic and imagined autobiography – within a poetic scope and consciously – an autobiography where the imaginary, the tangible, the strange, and the dreamlike converge, and poetic writing is what gives it coherence and cohesion.

Transformations

Within the same hypothetical division, between the first three collections and the subsequent three collections, what transformations have occurred in your poetry? What have you abandoned, and what have you retained and developed?

I haven't abandoned much, except for some lyrical touches you might find in one of the poems from my first collection.

What I have become more stringent about is ensuring that each poem is a new exploratory adventure, where I may not know at the outset where it will lead. What has also solidified is a stronger connection between my poems and my lived experiences, both real and internal, and even real-dreamlike experiences. In this regard, I have previously highlighted the collection, A Man Smiling at the Birds.

You read in French, have written a little in it, and translate from it into Arabic. What has translation given you?

When I translate a poet whose work I love, I feel like a guest witnessing the emergence of the flashes of his mind that lead to the creation of his text.

More than that, I live his experience through my language. This undoubtedly enriches my poetic taste and culture. One significant benefit I can say I gained from translation is the courage to adopt new writing styles.

Critics who still prefer clarity over ambiguity in poetry, even if clarity means regurgitating previous texts in superficially different forms, no longer satisfy anyone but beginners or those with very limited cultural exposure.

For example, when we read Henri Michaux, whose works I have translated, or Max Jacob, we no longer hesitate to write what could be called poetic narratives... This is just one example.

Among your translations, there seems to be a particular admiration from you as a reader for André Breton. You translated his poetry selections and his prose book, Nadja. What is your debt to Breton in particular and to surrealism in general?

I have loved the writings of Breton and the surrealists since my early youth.

At 16, I had leftist tendencies, which I have never renounced, and I loved poetry and literature, especially studying mathematics and physics.

In Breton, I was captivated by the combination of rebellion and the liberation of imagination in poetic writing, much more intensely than before.

You recently published the novel Wadi'a Khafaf. Why a novel? What was your need as a poet for narrative?

Wadi'a Khafaf was published after several poetry collections, but this does not mean that my desire to write a novel is something new.

In reality, I have read many novels and stories, and I was much more impressed by novels like The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner than by the poetry of Lamartine or Alfred de Musset.

The novel allows the creation of a quasi-realistic world, keeping the door open for dreams, imagination, and even poetry itself. Indeed, some novels are more infused with poetry than many poetry collections.

I am thinking now of The Obstinate Snail by Rachid Boudjedra, for example, which surpasses his poetry in terms of poetic quality.

Another example: while Jabra Ibrahim Jabra's pure poetry is subject to debate, in his novel The Other Rooms, there are highly poetic pages.

I add a simple point: Wadi'a Khafaf  has a realistic core that includes a kind of testimony about the experience of leftist Moroccan students in the 70's and beyond, and realistic writing about such topics is well-suited to the novel.

Poetry and the novel are both fields for creativity. While one can do without the other, one could choose to combine both... so why not do that?