Vision and orality in the critical project With the Lebanese magazine "Poetry" group

A review of tributaries and formations in two models by Muhammad Al-Maghout and Paul Chaul

Abstract

In 1957, the date of the “New Writing” Declaration of Youcef El Khal, the review Shi’r created an intellectual atmosphere and artistic current different from any thing experienced hitherto. This distinction was not only in terms of the theoretical underpinnings of the poetry but also in its application through individual distinctive creative works  in either free verse or prose verse. The latter found the propicious conditions and environment that enabled it to develop and prosper. The first group that was really interested in the free verse or prose verse was associated with the Lebanese review Shi’r that was established in the winter of 1957. The first collection of poems to be published was that  of  Anssi El Hadj, followed by Shawki Abu Shakra, Youcef El Khal, Fouad Rifkah, and others. However, the appellation “prose verse” did not become “prose poem” until Adonis’s discovery of a French book entitled The Prose Poem: from Baudelaire to the Present by Suzanne Bernard. The first edition of this book appeared in 1959 in Paris. A few months later, Adonis wrote an article entitled “On the Prose Poem” which he published in the review Shi’r in the Winter of 1960. He was the first to label this type of writing a poem as Susan Bernard did. He also published a verse poem entitled “ Obituary of the First Century” in the same issue of the same review. It seems that his article was an introduction to his poem.