Mr Refaat Alareer

B.A English Literature (BA Elits) are blessed to received a visit from Mr Refaat Alareer, an English lecturer from Palestine.

When we first told to read his blog and came out with questions, I discovered his Twitter account and tweeted him. We did tweeted few tweets before the class started.

During the talk, he briefly tell us about Palestine, Gaza and how Israel treated them. When he recite us his poems, I started to feel emotionally affected by his words.

He tell us to write although our words maybe not be fancy as other poets. His key word was 'imitate'. Scribble something. He said, 'the tiniest ideas create the best poem EVER'

'Create your own way to be creative. Dont be a mum to write about a mum' - Refaat Alareer. 

Personally I like the question asked by Denise. What does the significant of Olive? Mr Refaat answered that olives is a cure for everything (stomach ache, headache and etc) and olives represent Palestine in so many ways. In Quran, Suratul At - Tin (meaning the figs). In the first ayah, carries the meaning, by the fig and the olives. These fruits were supposed to represent Palestine (fig) and Syria (olives). Although it doesn't say about Olives being a Palestine but these two countries are badly affected by the war. I think it is related to one another as these two countries was holy lands where Allah SWT sends many of His messengers.

Alhamdulillah I managed to asked him a question. (his favourite poets and why). During the talk, he did mentioned he like Romantic poets because of the words simplicity used in the poems and during the Q&A session he added that he love John Donne because of depth and layers of Donne's poems.

Few inputs that I've managed to grasp from this talk is that:

1. Always listen to famous poets recite their poems (Mr Refaat introduced us some of his favourite Palestinian's poets)
2. Use lots of metaphors and similes in your poems.
3. Be yourself.

Back at my room, I was thinking about how Palestinians live (Mr Refaat told that houses are destroyed are normal things happened there). The story of how al - Aqsa will eventually be destroyed ripped my heart out and the fact I cant do anything breaks my heart even more. I am sending them prayers and hopefully I'll be able to meet them in jannah. Amen.

Works Cited:

1. http://readwithmeaning.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/chapter-95-at-tin-the-fig/ , n.d Web 22 Oct 2013
2. http://www.poemhunter.com/john-donne/biography/ , n.d Web 22 Oct 2013
3. http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/legacy.php , n.d Web 22 Oct 2013

War Poems

O Lord, Our Father

O Lord, our father,

Our young patriots, idols of our hearts,

Go forth to battle - be Thou near them!

With them, in spirit, we also go forth

From the sweet peace of our beloved firesides To smite the foe. 

O Lord, our God,

Help us to tear their soldiers

To bloody shreds with our shells;

Help us to cover their smiling fields

With the pale forms of their patriot dead; Help us to drown the thunder of

the guns With the shrieks of their wounded,

Writhing in pain. 

Help us to lay waste their humble homes

With a hurricane of fire;

Help us to wring the hearts of their

Unoffending widows with unavailing grief; Help us to turn them out roofless

With their little children to wander unfriended The wastes of their

desolated land

In rags and hunger and thirst,

Sports of the sun flames of summer

And the icy winds of winter,

Burdened in spirit, worn with travail,

Imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - 

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,

Blast their hopes,

Blight their lives,

Protract their bitter pilgrimage,

Make heavy their steps,

Water their way with their tears,

Stain the white snow with the blood

Of their wounded feet! 

We ask it in the spirit of love -

Of Him who is the source of love,

And Who is the ever-faithful

Refuge and Friend of all that are sore beset And seek His aid with humble

and contrite hearts. 

Amen

Marilyn Chin, Turtle Soup: Page 419-420

Team Leader: Nor Ramdan

For Ben Huang

You go home one evening tired from work, 

and your mother boils you turtle soup. 

Twelve hours hunched over the hearth

(who knows what else is in that cauldron).

You say, "Ma, you've poached the symbol of long life;

that turtle lived four thousand years, swam

the Wet, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze. 

Witnessed the Bronze Age, the High Tang,

grazed on splendid sericulture."

(So, she boils the life out of him.)

"All our ancestors have been fools.

Remember Uncle Wu who rode ten thousand miles

to kill a famous Manchu and ended up

with his head on a pole? Eat, child,

its liver will make you strong."

"Sometimes you're the life, sometimes the sacrifice." 

Her sobbing is inconsolable.

So, you spread that gentle napkin 

over your lap in decorous Pasadena.

Baby, some high priestess has got it wrong.

The golden decal on the green underbelly

says "Made in Hong Kong."

Is there nothing left but the shell

and humanity's strange inscriptions,

the songs, the rites, the oracles?

Exploration of the Text

1. Notice the author's choice of the word 'cauldron' in the line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why might the author have chose 'cauldron' rather than 'pot'?

The word cauldron means a large kettle or boiler. By using the word cauldron, the poet try to symbolises it to the mother. The author chose cauldron rather than pot is to show that the mother is a witch-like characters (who cooked a turtle, a Chinese symbolism for longevity) 

2. Chin refers to 'the Wei', 'the Yellow' and 'the Yangzte'. Why does she reference these rivers in China? Why not include the Nile, the Amazon or the Missisipi?

She refers to rivers in China to show where she came from.

3. What is the tone of this poem?

The tone for this poem is anger. 

Ideas for Writing

'Sometimes you are the life, sometimes the sacrifice'. Write about this quote within the context of immigrant family. Why might a family gain or lose by moving to a new land?

Within the context of immigrant family, this quote means that the fate of immigrant is unpredictable. You can live life normally or you can be sacrificed. Living outside from your country, you either can live life normal or you can be bullied by prejudice's people. By moving, a family might gain experience and lose culture. Person who travelled meet new people who practised different cultures and religions. With that he could gain many experiences rather than person who stayed at home. On negative side, he could lose his own culture as his culture (on food, cloths or tradition) cannot be practised in the new place he live. For example, if a Malay living in London, he cannot wear baju melayu or baju kurung (Malay's traditional cloths). Except if there is special occasions like Hari Raya Aidil Fitri or such. Other example is that, if we look at from the religion angle (related to the culture), Muslim only ate slaughtered halal animals. It is hard for them to find a slaughtered halal animals in London. As a result, his identity is slowly to disappear. 

Countee Cullen, Incident: Page 142-143

Incident - Countee Cullen (1925)

Explorations of the Text

1. What is the nature of the interaction between the two boys?

In a racial atmosphere. 

2. Why does the speaker remember nothing more than the incident, even though he stayed in Baltimore from “May until December”?

He was haunted by how awful Baltimorean treated him and cannot remember any good memories he had.

The Reading/Writing Connection

1. In a paragraph compare your experience of prejudice with the persona in the poem.

I am surrounded by friends who are look down on me when I told them my parents are from Kelantan. They (not all) will immediately assumed that I am unhygienic and only will be friend with all Kelantanese clicks. They even make fun of Kelantanese dialect. Although it is not the 'race issues' I can relate the what Cullen has wrote and it sucks to feel that way.

Ideas for Writing

1. What do its form and rhyme add to this poem?

The poem is in quatrain form (rhyming poem of four lines) and the rhyme scheme is ABCB.

2. What is the power of language? What are the effects of the use of term nigger?

The power of language is when a word that you use produced such an impact to other person. Effect of Cullen use the term nigger is to show how he is hurts by that word (nigger is a taboo word to American African people)