Yahya Al Naabi (The Gold Coast/Australia): The modern Poets of Oman

Fatima Al Sheedi

 

Born in a coastal area on the northern of Oman called Saham, Fatima Al Sheedi writes poetry and articles to the Omani’s human, she explains that Oman has a legacy of poetry from ancient time. She believes that the new generation of poetry is a mix of the ancient and modern poetic (prose), although she is interested in poetic prose.

I’m writing,

Such as a lame ballet dancer

Blundering in movements

However,

Do not give up her dream.

Like a turtle is living in a fishbowl

Richly, the young are watching her.

Or

Like a blind pianist

Fumbling a tone keys by soul.

In the poem above, it is clear that the poet has a lack of confidence because she uses the metaphor of her writing as a lame dancer, a turtle in an aquarium or as a blind pianist. This is because the society in which she works rejects women, whether writers or poets, so she feels broken by the lack of encouragement. Nevertheless, she will not be defeated nor give up her dream of continuing writing. The community rejects a female writer today because there have been no women writing novels, short stories or poetry over the last 40 years and society is still conservative and has a lot of taboos.

The idea is coming in late at night

Causing pain to my soul

Naive and good

As befits a homeless idea

With torn clothes and a dusty face.

The poet describes her poetic inspiration arriving late at night and her visualising this inspiration as a “homeless idea.” That means that any creative writing starts with a small idea or a flash that the poet transforms into wider meanings in a harmonic poetic context.

She also wrote:

I’m accurately writing

As a sculptor works

Approaching from a tree trunk

Then

He decides to turn it into a woman.

Women are constantly adored for their beauty. Hence, the poet is trying to show that her poetic writing is a thing of beauty and that she considers it a gift to the people, arranged and coordinated to create an exquisite painting as the sculptor who transforms a trunk tree to a woman