YAHIA LABABIDI: THE POET OF HOPE

 I recently stopped my Twitter account and, like many others, moved to Mastodon, and the first poet I encountered there was Yahia Lababidi. What a delight! What a calm voice of reason. What an excellent poet. I am going to let Yahia speak for himself. Enjoy!

Tell us about the new collection

I have two collections that I’m proud of, Irish twins, conceived around 9 months apart.

Desert Songs is my love letter to the deserts of Egypt, featuring transporting images by Moroccan photographer, Zakaria Wakrim, as well as Learning to Pray, a collection of my spiritual meditations.

Also, an even more recent passion project that I hope will interest your readers: I’ve partnered on a subscription service with a clever programmer and lover of wisdom literature, Sam Henry, to deliver daily contemplative quotes from my books. You can learn more and sign up, here.

What next?

In the upcoming months, Quarantine Notes (Fomite Press, 2023) This is a collection of a few hundred of my new aphorisms composed during our global pandemic. Political, cultural and spiritual meditations that got me through the strange lifetime that was the last three years.

Music, poetry or film? Which speaks the most to you?

It’s a close call between music and poetry (much as I appreciate films & enjoy reviewing them: Yahia Lababidi | World Literature Today) There’s no denying the wordless power of music, how it can cut straight to the heart and transport us. But, for better or worse, I’m a word guy; besides, poetry has built in music and reels of film in it, too!

What do you want your poetry to do?/what do you want to evoke in the reader/listener?

Many things. Entertain, educate, return us to ourselves, remind of deeper realities and what is indestructible. Poetry can do this by slowing us down to a stillness, getting us to inhabit the moment, and meditate on essences. Ultimately, poetry as praise and prayer.

What’s the typical career path of a poet?

I’m nearly 50 (in six months) and still trying to figure that out! If you/readers have any tips, please, reach out. Here’s my resume: Yahia Lababidi | LinkedIn

How has the poetry business/scene changed over your life time?

Off the top of my head, I think of social media, which seems like licensed eavesdropping. On one hand, it can steal from our precious inwardness and force us, at times, to share fruit that is unripe or interact in ways that might do violence to our nature. The irony of a private person in a public profession. The flip side of this, of course, is the ability to reach a wider audience, hear from your readers (almost, instantaneously, like telepathy!) as well as reach publishers / outlets in ways that were inconceivable when I started 3 decades ago.

If you could become a character in fiction, or film who would you be and why?

As a very young man, I admired superheroes (like Spiderman). Becoming a teenager, this adulation shifted to pop stars and shortly, after, poets and philosophers. Now, it’s mostly mystics and visionaries that I hold in high regard. Not sure this answers your question, but there you have it 😊

Given the state of society at this point in time what is the role of the poet?

To amplify the Light, so as to counter the prevalent cynicism, despair and nihilism.

How has your work changed over time?

I began as someone who, foolishly, worshipped at the altar of the mind (recovering Existentialist). Now, I bow before the life of the Spirit and its countless mysteries…

How far does real life creep into your work?

What is ‘real life’? The ephemeral world of politics? The nonsense that passes for reality tv? I don’t know. I believe in the vital role of the artist as witness, conscience and activist. But, I also know that one cannot sound off on everything, all the time — poorly-digested ‘real life’ as you call it, makes for bad art.

Name something you love and why?

Beauty. I believe that aesthetics and ethics are connected. If we abide by the laws of Beauty — in thought, word and deed — we stand to lead a life that it good and true.

What would be your dream project?

I would like to write a children’s book and am exploring this possibility, using new technologies like ChatGPT! (If you can’t beat them, join them 😊)

How do you navigate the poetry world?

Gingerly. I’m still very much trapped in the past and wary of taking in too much of what is current, without taste or discernment. That said, I recognize I cannot afford to, entirely, turn my back on what’s happening Now and am pleasantly surprised from time to time.

You can listen to my readings of some poems that matter to me, on Soundcloud.

If you were not a poet what would you be?

Possibly, not alive.

Have you ever doubted your talent?

Daily.

Thank you

HORNY HANDED TONS OF SOIL

Adrian Henri was one of those rare individuals who are gifted as a poet, painter and a visionary. He is forever entwined with Liverpool. Alongside Brian Patten and Roger McGough, he was featured in the best selling anthology The Mersey Sound. A collection that influenced me greatly when first published.
Here is Henri's group The Liverpool Scene with Winter Poem.

The good news is that the sublimely talented Lizzie Nunnery and Vidar Norheim have joined forces with Martin Smith and Martin Heslop to produce a diamond of a production Horny Handed Tons of Soil. 
Combining poetry, live music and story telling with film by Tony Brunsden, Horny Handed Tons of Soil is inspired by Henri's poetic response to the urban geography of Liverpool. It explores themes of destruction, construction and memory within stories of what has been lost and found, in the re-sculpting of the Liverpool landscape over the past fifty years.
If you are able to get to the Theatre Royal on the 7th June then go for it! This promises to be a wondrous evening.
Lizzie and Vidar are no strangers to this blog. I have seen most of their shows over the past ten years and they are always thought provoking, offering an intensely humanistic perspective that celebrates the everyday and some cracking songs!
What are you waiting for?
Here is Lizzie singing Ellan Vannin.

Until next time.

TROPICAL PRESSURE

Two weekends ago I was invited to the Tropical Pressure Festival to run a poetry workshop. What a lovely little festival it was!
Firstly thanks to Nikki, Marcel, Mike, Alison, Luke, Mark, Sarah and Mike for attending said workshop and putting so much effort into the exercises. 

Here's the poem [in a rough draft] that I wrote in the workshop.


1986

Miles Davis on his t-shirt,
he's got his mojo back,
is coolness in human form
and now the world is music.

Christine makes the yeast rise.
He holds her in the night,
warm, safe, unaware
of how little time they have left.

The situation is fluid,
but Bernard is married to his bricks and their mortar,
he will sink in the flood that is to come.
His son mirrors his certitude,
fights a rear guard action.

On a beach I will return to in my mind,
I can still see you.

It is still too oblique to really work on a universal level yet, but it is worth persevering with.
Here's a video of me reading London Conversation. Thanks to Alison for the video. You can read the poem here.

I leave you this post with Judee Sill.

Here's a documentary about her. It's well worth a listen.