Beirut – “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”: The poet Hassan Al-Abdullah listened to those who addressed him in that modern day that gathered a large and diverse crowd at the Forum of the plastic artist Khairat Al-Zein – Beirut. He shook his head and hummed, and vowed to respond to them. In this place that I love and frequent, most of the names and pens that formed and still are the cultural scene in Beirut met. Poets, writers, novelists, plastic artists, critics and journalists. The meeting with Hassan Al-Abdullah brought together the opposing and contradictory in their positions, but he left some of his predisposed pacifism, and his radiant love dominates everything else. He chose to receive the lovers in the voice of Marcel Khalife, asking, “Where do I enter the homeland?” He moved to emphasize the eloquence of “the most beautiful mothers”.
He called for this meeting “The Pen Club” on the initiative of the novelist Hassan Daoud. To Koraytem, where the good deeds of Hassan Al-Abdullah’s friends and lovers flocked, a charcoal portrait was drawn by the artist Osama Baalbaki at the reception, to the presence and gratitude of his sister Rabab, who formed his shadow in his last years. With full of love, with a simple and eloquent narration, and with smiling faces, it was an evocation of Hassan’s biography. Stories continued regarding that surprised child who did not leave the plains of his tent town, and the tent that he used to live in for months every year, inhabited him and provided him with a spacious experience that enriched his imagination.
From “Al-Dardara”, the masterpiece of Hassan Al-Abdullah and the preoccupation with critics and poets, the novelist Hassan Daoud began to admit his delay in attaching to it. He stopped at the passages of which he threatened his aunt and bargained with her. This bargaining described by Daoud as “childishness that fascinated us.” He described his poetry as “the old thing emerging from instinct.” Daoud announced his fascination with the poems that Hassan Al-Abdullah had memorized for Al-Mutanabbi, and his question to himself: “Why did I not recite them before?”
Hassan Daoud described the presence of Hassan Al-Abdullah with a keen eye and an open heart, as he said: We gather what we lived with Hassan, and we find ourselves smiling.. His presence was delightful.. The stories we witnessed with him must be told. Daoud recalled the loss of poetry for another poetic stature with the departure of the poet Muhammad Ali Shams al-Din, “We remember Hassan and have mercy on Muhammad Ali Shams al-Din.”
The poet and novelist Abbas Beydoun described Hassan Al-Abdullah, the author of the four poetry collections, “was a poet all the time, especially the time when poetry was not organized… Hassan did not get tired of waiting for poetry.” He summed up Hassan’s view of poetry: “He had no definition of poetry… Poetry was to dazzle and worship.”
What is similar to the case of Hassan Al-Abdullah, and what is similar to the case of Issam Al-Abdullah, the poet Tariq Nasr Al-Din narrated that Issam came to him in a dream to notify him of writing regarding Hassan. And when he responds, following insistence, to write in colloquial the poem “Issam Bahsan”. The words of Fatinah Bahia, and most importantly, were true: “My name is Hassan.. the name of the pet is Hassoun.. Born in the sign of poetry.. Successful in thought and colors.. Failed in arithmetic.”
There are many conjurers of the spirit and soul of Hassan Al-Abdullah, whose peace is envied, as if she was a virgin who had not encountered the evils of this present, of greed, pretentiousness, complacency, and the power of money. Maya Al-Hajj, Haitham Al-Amin, Alawia Sobh, Nada Zbeeb, Youssef Raqqa, Hassan M Al-Abdullah, Jamila Hussein, Ahmed Kaabour, who composed more than 50 poems, and Nawal Al-Hawar spoke. Khairat Al-Zein concluded the meeting with a note of Hassan, “He who remained the same.. His smile is present with us.. He left us and carried his pain with him.. But he kept his love, fragrance and loyalty everywhere.”
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