Moroccan poet, Mohammed Bennis, wins Maghreb Culture Prize

Here is an article from the Moroccan National News Service on an award given to the Moroccan poet Mohammed Bennis. Beneath that is a poem of his that posted on Poetry International Web. You can read the original Arabic poem at this link to the PIW site.
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Moroccan poet wins Maghreb Culture Prize

Kairouan - Moroccan poet Mohammed Bennis was awarded, on Thursday in Tunisia, the Maghreb Culture Prize in recognition of his outstanding literary achievements and poetry works.

The award was handed over to the Moroccan poet by Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during the closing ceremony of Kairouan Festival in presence of several Arab and Islamic personalities.

Born in 1948 in Fez, Mohammed Bennis is a founding member of the House of poetry in Morocco, which he chaired from 1996 to 2003.

He authored over twenty books of poetry, prose, essays and translations. He was awarded in 1993 Morocco's book prize, and received the Italian Prize of Calopezzati of Mediterranean Literature in 2006, in addition to the Atlas translation Prize in 2000.

Last modification 02/25/2010 07:54 PM.
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from Hieroglyphs

by Mohammed Bennis


1

A ghost
You attend to the ruby time
No east will rise in you or west
A niche
Drowned in blue rustle shrouded by the Kingdom
A clay horizon
Eternity
Dangling like a bunch of grapes
For a hand that drifts away
And dies

A stone
Forgets its master
Was he
Here
Or was he there
A stone above a stone
Rises to watch you
The comer
No one
Is still awake but you

A silence attends to me
And for you my guest
There will be a night of papyri
And a night of
Ageless
Distances
Arriving in hissing scents
The night’s end
And beginning
Are identical
Friezes are becoming one
Under the feet of the river’s dusk
Intoxication echoes resonate inside me
And fade away



© Translation:James Kirkup
From: Almakane alwathani