“To the nylon tent that made its best,” is the dedication featured of the first page of a new poetry collection titled “Small Graves” by Syrian poet Maher Sharafeddine. Once the reader sees it, he senses a subtle romance that wasn’t affected by the crudeness of the Syrian reality. The poems of Sharafeddine track the footsteps of refuges who were eradicated from their homeland and thrown into camps, mostly random and inhuman like asylum itself.
However, the tent is not the only tragedy in Syrians’ life. The poems also shed lights on displacement and eradication, asylum journeys, and death in the Mediterranean waters while seeking a safer place.
In his new book, Sharafeddine recalls the victims of air raids left under the ruins of residential neighborhoods and markets, and the graves that were swiftly dug and marked with tombstone made of cardboard. He didn’t also forget the innocent people who went out to participate in peaceful demonstrations and died to become “the protestor of yesterday/he martyred today/his white grave cloth/ his last banner.”
The poet used a documentation-like style to expose the lies and crudeness of news reports, like in his poem “Pictures of Caesar,” depicting the corpses of prisoners captured by the prison’s photographer. Sharafeddine imagines Syrians’ attempts to look for their children in thousands of photographs shared in the virtual world. He also highlights the places demolished by the war in three poems that visit the cities of Darayya, Maara, and Ariha, and mourn the damage caused by the inhuman bombs targeting the land and the people. The poems also recall revolutionary icons from Syria, who died in their country or in their asylum for different reasons, like Abdul Baset al-Sarout and his protest partner Fadwa Suleiman, in addition to actress May Skaf who struggled and died abroad.
In his 8th collection and from his far asylum in the United States, Maher Sharafeddine proves he’s spiritually and mentally close to document what his country has lived within 10 years of massacres, avoiding direct speech while speaking about a massive tragedy. Sharaffeddine has successfully reflected the conscience of poets in major historic events, and how they use their great vision to keep recalling scenes with a creativity that preserve them.
An extract from the poem “Congested Displacement Route”:
“Their bags are heavy
Like if they are filled with stones
And the light foam mattress
They stuck between them
Was heavy as well
Their last looks
at their houses before they leave
Was heavy
They were even left there
So, they left them and departed.”
