Poems and tales of a literary forefather of the United Arab Emirates Love, Death, Fame features the poetry of al-Māyidī ibn Ẓāhir, who has been embraced as the earliest poet in what would later become the United Arab Emirates. Although little is known about his life, he is the subject of a sizeable body of folk legend and is thought to have lived in the seventeenth century, in the area now called the Emirates. The tales included in Love, Death, Fame portray him as a witty, resourceful, scruffy poet, at times combative and at times kindhearted. His poetry primarily features verses of wisdom and romance, with scenes of clouds and rain, desert migrations, seafaring, and pearl diving. Like Arabian Romantic and Arabian Satire, this collection is a prime example of Nabaṭī poetry, combining vernacular language of the Arabian Peninsula with archaic vocabulary and images dating to Arabic poetry’s very origins. Distinguished by Ibn Ẓāhir’s unique voice, Love, Death, Fame offers a glimpse of what life was like four centuries ago in the region that is now the UAE. An English-only edition.

"Poems and tales of a literary forefather of the United Arab Emirates"--

Fifty-nine lyrical works in which the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet describes the creative process, politics, and the struggle of maintaining life.

"Poems and tales of a literary forefather of the United Arab Emirates"--

One of the most astonishing things about this astonishing book is that it follows so closely in time the enormous achievement of the author's Dream Songs, the first part of which 77 Dream Songs, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1965 and the second part, His Toy, His Dream, His Rest, the National Book Award for Poetry in 1969. Love & Fame is written in a style new for Berryman, new for anybody. The poet talks of his beginnings as an artist' of his loves; of the strange experience of fame ("Dawdling into glory"); of violent politics' of a sanatorium in the Midwest ("Hospital racket, nurses' iron smiles")' of the whole peculiar business of being and staying alive. The poems are cast in language that is fresh, frank blunt, exuberantly gay, shocking, funny, deeply tragic, and never less than memorable: Thought much I then on perforated daddy, daddy boxed in & let down with strong straps when I my friends' homes visited, with fathers universal & intact. Love & Fame culminates in a grave series of "Eleven Addresses to the Lord." "...Love & Fame (1970), the last book that Berryman saw to publication ...[was] the most nakedly confessional of all his books..." - The Atlantic

"The poetry of al-Māyidī ibn Ẓāhir, the earliest poet in what would later become the United Arab Emirates"--