Saturday, June 30, 2007

Country Poem meme---Yemen---400th post

I had gone to poefrica/rethabile to comment on his works. I landed up on this Country poem meme.

I thought why not give it a try! I did learn something about a country I know nothing! I even plan to find out more about its literature.

Intro for you all:

Take a country whose name begins with the last letter of your surname. (a) Jane Doe would take Ecuador, for example, or Egypt. England (like the USA and Ireland) does not qualify. Wole Soyinka would take Angola, or Afghanistan. If you cannot find a country with that letter (and only then), move back a step. (b) Jane Doe would take Oman, in that case. And as for Wole Soyinka, he would go for Kazakhstan, or Korea. And so on.

Here is my offering:

As my surname is Tripathy, Yemen was the only country that came to my mind.

1. Tell us what the capital city of the country

Yemen is a Middle Eastern country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. Yemen is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the North, the Red Sea to the West, the Arabian Sea. In addition, Gulf of Aden to the South, and Oman to the east. Yemen's territory includes over 200 islands, the largest of which is Socotra, about 415 kilometres to the south of Yemen, off the coast of Somalia. The capital of Yemen is Sana’a.

2. How many inhabitants that country has?

It has a population of about 20 million people

3. Find and share with us a poem in English of not more than 20 lines from that country. If it's longer; cut it to twenty lines or less.

Waddah al-Yaman, born Abdul Rahman bin Isma’il al-Khawlani(d. 708), was an Arab poet. He was born in Yemen in the second half of the seventh century. He was famous for his erotic and romantic poems. He was executed by the Ummayad Caliph Al-Walid I, allegedly due to his over familiarity with the former's wife. Waddah is now regarded as the national poet of Yemen.

One of his poems goes like this:

She said, "Don’t come to our home, my father is deadly jealous."
I said, "I’ll pluck you before he knows it, my sword is razor sharp."
She said, "There’s a whole castle between us."
I said, "I’ll fly my flag over the castle."
She said, "There’s a whole sea between us."
I said, "I’m a strong swimmer."
She said, "My seven brothers keep an eye on me."
I said, "I’m a match for them all."
She said, "Allah is watching us."
I said, "My lord is Merciful and Forgiving."
She said, "I have run out of words, so come tonight when everyone’s floating in dreams, and fall on me like dew, undisturbed."

4. Tell us something you particularly like about the poem you have chosen:

There was no other choice. It is the only poem I could find on the net from Yemen.

5. Add a line anywhere in the poem (beginning, middle or end), and clearly show which line is yours to avoid confusion and/or ambiguity.

I said, "Tonight I come to you and merge our souls."

She said, "Don’t come to our home, my father is deadly jealous."
I said, "I’ll pluck you before he knows it, my sword is razor sharp."
She said, "There’s a whole castle between us."
I said, "I’ll fly my flag over the castle."
She said, "There’s a whole sea between us."
I said, "I’m a strong swimmer."
She said, "My seven brothers keep an eye on me."
I said, "I’m a match for them all."
She said: "Allah is watching us."
I said, "My lord is Merciful and Forgiving."
She said, "I have run out of words, so come tonight when everyone’s floating in dreams, and fall on me like dew, undisturbed."

I tag J. Andrew Lochart, Borut and/or anyone else who wants to play.

Thank you. Please tag two people (leave a message on their blog, too).

BTW, this is my 400th post on this blog. I have been blogging for two years now!


30 comments:

Writing on Board said...

Gautami,

Congrats on your first sestina and on your 400th post. I was invited to visit Yemen and this post has given me even more info. Don't know if I'll go, but thank you.

OldLady Of The Hills said...

First...Congratulations on 400 posts! That is fantastic!
Second: What an interesting challange that was...I knew very little about Yemen....and still don't know a whole lot, but because of you, I know much more than I did! And, I love that you actually found a poem from Yemen! It is an amazing poem....!

And Michele sent me here today, myy dear...!

polona said...

that was very interesting.
and congratulations on your 400th post. may there bemany more to come.

trinitystar said...

Congratulations all those words and all those people that have read them ... WoW! Great poem from the Yemen interesting challenge.

Beaman said...

I agree, interesting challenge. Congratulations on reaching 400 by the way. :) I am about to reach my 1st century. My cyber zimmer-frame has already been ordered.

Steve said...

400th Post?
I wonder how many words that would be?

sage said...

interesting exercise--and I'm amazed that you found a poet and a poem from Yemen. I'm just 10 posts behind you--I'm at 390.

Anonymous said...

My signal is so slow I'm lucky I got here on the comment page and it's very unlikely that I could search for a poem. My last name is Redman. I would pick the Netherlands and find a poem from there if I could. It's an intersting meme theme.

J. Andrew Lockhart said...

o.k., I'll try it but it could be a while :)

craziequeen said...

hey Gautami, congrats on your 400th post and 2yrs!

What an interesting meme - I'll have to keep it in mind next time I have blogblock :-)

Michele sent me to say hi

cq

Marcia (MeeAugraphie) said...

Congrats Gautami on your 400th post! I loved the line you chose to add to the poem, it fit so well.

Borut said...

I had to muster up all my energy reserves to come and say 'hello'! Nicely done!:)

kenju said...

What an interesting meme this is! I may decide to do it, if I can find a country that begins with "o" that I want to write about. I do like the poem; he's very presistent!

Michele sent me.

January said...

I'm going to tag myself for this one. What a great meme.

And congrats on your 400th post!

Pat Paulk said...

Congratulations!! A v ery interesting meme.

Pat said...

Hamaste Gautami! aren't I the lucky one because my last letter is also y so I endorse all you say.
As you are interested in poetry you may be interested in one of my friend's blog- the apprentice. I'm useless at html but she is on my side bar. Have a look
Michele says hi!.

Shannon akaMonty said...

WHAT a great meme! I've not seen this one before...I love it!

And I love the poem as well...PLUS lookit all the education I just got! :D

Ruela said...

Nice work you have here.
Congratulations for this 400 posts.

Keshi said...

Yemen has 20million ppl? Never knew that WOW!

Keshi.

JP (mom) said...

Congrats on your 400th post! Interesting meme (if not a bit complicated!) Cheers, JP

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Indeed congratulations, Gautami! Quite interesting, but I the fact that you wear sneakers with saris is even better. THAT is poem material! Best wishes, Don

Anonymous said...

Yemen is the only country starting with Y. I did not have any choice.

I learnt a bit about it and searching for more literature.

I found this meme very informative. Thanks rethabile, for this.

Thank you all for your opinions and support.

Annie Jeffries said...

Congratulations on 400 posts. Amazing! Also, thank you for visiting my blog and my poem from Sierra Leone. Ret's inspirational meme challenge is spreading like wildfire. I was warmly chilled by the poem from Yemen. Loved the passion it evokes.

Rethabile said...

Hey gautami,
This is indeed marvellous. Thanks for playing along, we've all learned sth bcse you did. Cheers to you.

January said...

OK, I've posted the meme on my blog.

Bill C said...

This looks like an interesting meme; I'll add myself to the tag-list. And congratulations on your 400+ posts!

Also, thanks for visiting today. Hope you have a great week--

bc

Whirling Dervish said...

Hi Gautami,

Thanks to you and Ret for encouraging me to try my hand at my first meme! Your information on Yemen inspired me- if you can do this great of work with Y, I should be able to handle S!

Thanks for the constant inspiration- your blog gives me much to think about.

http://stoneymoss.blogspot.com/2007/07/by-any-other-suri-name.html

Deb said...

Nicely done, and a lot of good information you provided.

Ces Adorio said...

Congratulations Gautami, still blogging and loving it.

The country meme is rather difficult especially if you have to find something poetic about it. I think I would settle for the mere reading of a geography book instead of researching for one and writing about it. hahahha!

Crafty Green Poet said...

Good to find a new poet, but now I wonder how to find out more about Yemeni poetry, if Google can't find it!

btw Gautami, your blog loads a bit slowly sometimes - it takes a while before i can scroll down to read more.