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Mohammed Al-Maghout
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Like a deposed monarch under house arrest, Mohammed Al-Maghout lived confined in the Damascus apartment where myself and the Iraqi poet, Mohammed Mazhloum, visited him one day. Gentle and welcoming he lay on his couch with a fearsome cocktail of wine, whiskey and gin in a glass on the floor, and a packet of French tobacco at his side. The old poet, his vigor and keen vision undiminished, smoked incessantly.
Despite his physical weakness, Al-Maghout seemed at rest: the toll his extraordinary life had taken on him was clear to see, but he had finally accepted his old age and incapacity with something approaching grace. This did not, however, mean that he had lost any of his tempestuous spirit, piercing intelligence or stinging turn of phrase. He was still Mohammed Al-Maghout, the wounded and the wounding, the innocent aggressor, the defiant coward, the man who “would trade all the stars of the East for a matchstick.”
So here, 12 years after my first meeting with him was the magician himself, worn out and decrepit, a prisoner in his own house. What had I come to do? To question him, interview him, or merely to record his words—which still possessed their old explosive power—for posterity.
We knocked and entered. In the corner by the entrance Al-Maghout had placed a bust of his own head. “It was given to me by the sculptor Faiz Nahri,” he explained. The walls are covered with pictures, a large proportion of which are portraits of the poet given to him by his artist friends. In the small office adjoining the hallway a large window looks out onto a sunny balcony, and on the walls facing the desk hang photographs of singers old and new: Esmahan, Shadia, Asala, Sabah, Fairuz, Abd Al-Wahhab, Abd Al-Halim Hafiz and Farid Al-Atrash. A drawing of Antara lay on the desk. The only representatives of the literary world in his collection are Albert Camus (“I adore his clarity,” says Al-Maghout) and the poet Kamal Kheir Bek (“My dearest friend”).
Although he has now overcome his alcoholism he still maintains a small bar in the living room overflowing with glasses and bottles. “It’s to keep the atmosphere,” explains his nephew Mohammed, a medical student who lives with his uncle and looks after him, “He likes his guests to have a drink or two: it’s what he’s used to.”
We sit down next to Al-Maghout, who cannot leave the couch on account of his weak legs:
Youssef Al-Bazzi: Are you working on anything? We heard that you spent all your time writing these days.
Mohammed Al-Maghout: I completed a play called “The Scissors”, and I’m currently working on a TV series, “Stories of Night and Day” which is a sequel to the “Night Stories” series. I come up with the ideas and the screenplay writers at Syrian TV turn it into the finished article. I also wrote a play entitled “Standing, Sitting” which is being staged by the director Zuhair Abd Al-Karim. Every week I write a column in the Tishreen newspaper. A collection of my poetry will be released shortly, entitled “East of Aden, West of God”.
You don’t seem too downhearted. Do you feel OK?
My sadness comes with the night: I don’t sleep well and things are no longer as clear-cut as they used to be. Love, hate, death, eating, drinking, resentment and depression are all jumbled up and I seem to experience them all at the same time. But I’m in pretty good shape and my doctor—my nephew Mohammed—is here with me.
At any rate you certainly seem better than you were…
I was suicidal. They cheated me out of two million Syrian pounds and I got addicted to alcohol. I would drink three bottles a day then be overcome by nausea and collapse. I lost my sense of place. I’d think I was in the kitchen when I was in the living room, or that I was in the bedroom when I was in the bathroom. I was in terrible shape. Yes, I certainly am better now.
Do you ever look back…?
God blessed me with dignity and fame: far more than I deserve. People’s appreciation and love makes me happy, but it’s also a responsibility and I can’t afford to make a mistake.
Right… What I meant was: Do you ever think of past?
Look, I’m no intellectual: I don’t have any qualifications and I’m hopeless at foreign languages. But it was to me that the President of the School of Oriental Studies in Sydney, Australia, a Jewish man, said that I was the most important poet in the world and one of the most talented in history. Journalists and researchers are always coming to visit and writing studies on my work. What more could I ask for?
I’m Mohammed Al-Maghout: I don’t boast and I don’t beat around the bush!
Do you follow current events?
Iraq will be all right. The most important thing is that that ruler who thought he was God Himself will never return. There’s not a tyrant in the region who can act the pharaoh any more.
You seem happy…
Poets are never happy. (brief silence) Forget about Vietnam.
So you really live in the present?
I exist in the present! (sighs) The Arabs won’t get freedom without democracy. The worst democracy is preferable to the best dictatorship.
To be frank, you haven’t answered my question about your life, your past…
I don’t regret a single letter that I’ve written. Mahmoud Darwish, Al-Beyati, Adonis and the others… I’m the only one of them who hasn’t had any regrets about his early work. But there is one incident where I wish I’d acted differently. Of all the other poets, I love Al-Siyab the most. Before he died he paid me a visit and left in my care a quite superb (and very long) poem about Abd Al-Karim Qasim, which he wrote after they overthrew him and killed him. I got frightened so I tore it up. It’s lost forever.
It seems that your relations with other poets have mellowed a bit…
I behaved awfully towards Adonis for a long time. Riyad Al-Rayyis and Ziyad Babil from Al-Manar magazine poured whiskey down my throat and encouraged me to have a go at him.
After I recovered from my illness Adonis called me up and we had a nice little chat. Then he came to visit me, and we sat and had a drink and talked about the passing clouds. Adonis is good, kind man.
What’s your relationship with your own poetry?
Even now my own poems can surprise me.
Do you ever go back to your home in Al-Silmia?
Although I’m currently renovating my house in Al-Silmia, I haven’t been back for 12 years. I can’t bear to leave Damascus. People love me here. I’ll be walking in the street and people will just walk up to me and kiss my hands. Young veiled women, even! I’ve reached everybody, be it through TV, the stage, my poetry or my column in the paper. Friends are always dropping by, like Ilias Masuh, Ilias Fadil, Fatima Nithami, Joseph Harb, Nazir Nabaa and Zakariya Tamir.
Do you miss Lebanon?
This is what I have to say to the Lebanese: Whether partisan, secular, materialistic or spiritual you must cling onto this fragment of freedom, the last little fragment that remains. This scrap is our salvation. Don’t let go: freedom is taken, not given…
That drink you’ve got is a peculiar color…
It’s wine with whiskey and a splash of gin.
Do you still keep the radio next to you?
I’m a devotee of the BBC and the songs of Fairuz.
Do you get a lot of visits from journalists?
I don’t talk for free, and I don’t shut up for free.
How’s your financial situation? Are you doing OK?
I have a pension for life from President Bashar, and I get paid for my newspaper articles.
Do you get much time to write?
I’m a wreck. When I write, I live again.
We’re back to depression?
The evening’s drawing in.
What are your dreams?
I have no dreams.
I mean: What do you dream about when you’re asleep?
I never remember, but I do have one recurring nightmare. I’m lost. I can’t remember my address and I just wander around looking for it. Usually the dream is set in Beirut. Policemen, security officers, clerics and dogs are chasing after me. I wake up terrified and I can’t breath properly.
Do you follow the progress of new poets? Do they come to see you?
I’m not one for giving advice. Talent makes itself known. I’ve always preferred terrible poetry that’s honest, to verses that are perfectly constructed but fake.
You aren’t strong enough to walk, so I assume you no longer make your daily trip to the Abu Shafiq Café or the Brazilia Cafeteria in the Al-Sham Hotel.
My imagination is my crutch. With its help I can walk all over Damascus. Sometimes they help me downstairs, put me in a car and we go for a trip.
What do think of Damascus nowadays?
It’s changed for the worse.
A while ago you said that you were born terrified and that you were going to die terrified. Why?
Between a frightened eagle and a bold mouse, I’ve always gone for the eagle.
Al-Maghout then declared the interview at an end. He lit a cigarette, looked up at us, and said, “You’re most welcome”. The weariness and sadness he felt in the evening had settled on his face. We left his house and returned to his poems.
(This interview was conducted in early 2004) |
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Youssef Bazzi |
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| Like a deposed monarch under house arrest, Mohammed Al-Maghout lived confined in the Damascus apartment where myself and the Iraqi poet, Mohammed Mazhloum, visited him one day. Gentle and welcoming he lay on his couch with a fearsome cocktail of wine, whiskey and gin in a glass on the floor, and a packet of French tobacco at his side. The old poet, his vigor and keen vision undiminished, smoked incessantly. |
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