Paulo Coelho, and Rania Khallaf Before we hate Paolo Coelho, the second collection of poems by -- one of the more promising younger poets now working in Egypt -- appeared recently with Sharqiyat. Light feet, her first book, had appeared the previous year with the same publisher, to a warm reception which Before we hate Paolo Coelho seems to be sharing. In her mid-30s, Omar stands deliberately aside from the literary Generation of the Nineties, to whom she technically (and, some might argue, aesthetically) belongs; she dislikes generation-based classifications: "I belong with the poetry of every age; classifications imposed on poets mean nothing to the poets themselves, they are a critics' invention." Creativity, to her, has rather more to do with "a deep personal conflict", something she experiences every time she writes: "In my teens I always resisted the urge to write, afraid that people, reading my words, would discover my essence and expose me. It was the beginning of a battle that would never end -- a small war inside of me. It is still there, especially during painful periods of my life, during which writing simply implies more tears." She regrets every poem she ever wrote, every bell that tolled for her; writing is always and by default an expression of grief. A total of 29 shorter poems occupies 83 pages: each crystallises an emotional insight. Like Nineties poetry in general, Omar's work is made up of everyday incidents and details. Even the hallucinations are composed of closely recognisable scenes. But perhaps Omar's most interesting trait is her fascination with the natural world: images of clouds, flowers and, notably, a turtle, are both intimate and powerful, variously conveyed. In "Daily actions", the opening piece, the reader is instantly captivated by Omar's use of verbs: "I speak to clouds I love/Draw in my head, like a turtle/Shrink like a cat..." All is motion, every new line is a new transformation. Most of the poems, indeed, have that same structure: a relatively static prelude followed by a sequence of actions, then a quiet conclusion reinstating stasis. "I don't read much poetry," Omar, a graduate of Cairo University's philosophy department, confesses. "I prefer novels and philosophy books. But I believe my poems are the result of assimilating many art forms." Among her more noticeable borrowings from the novel is the narrative structure of many poems, which sometimes read like compressed short stories: the poetess becomes the main character in a dramatic situation, marching confidently onto the scene: "With only one finger I can move the whole globe, on my small desk..." Self-assertion is but a mode of self-analysis, however, and Omar's probing of herself is relentless. In "I am not a whole garden", for example, she is a flower who stands still as soon as the bee settles on her, watching it in action: "Now I love my eyes... Its motion asserts my existence" -- a key phrase that points to Omar's keenness on portraying herself. "I grab pen and paper only when I feel that I exist, when I am in this heightened state of existence, if you like: writing, for me, is a tool with which to understand myself and my situation in life -- in the whole world." Equally important, however, is the female self in relation to a male presence, the bee in the aforementioned poem, which tampers with her body only to leave her to herself once again, to "taste her own honey" in the solitude of the kitchen. A bold image, but one that typifies Omar's whole approach to creative work. Long titles make for "a parallel poem", being as they are almost as long as the texts themselves! Here as elsewhere Omar has an astonishing capacity for economy of means. In "Intimate relations" and "Group sex", especially, condensation is utilised to maximum effect. Sometimes, as in "Marionette", the poem is too short to allow for complete enjoyment of the poetic experience; in "The same old quiet before the storm", condensation makes for baffling ambiguity. "I am always eager to make the poem short," Omar explains. "In many cases I cut the text. My conviction is that, if a word, even a single word, does not add meaning or feeling, it should go." She is sitting in a darkened, empty room as she says this, throwing the photos of her recently deceased husband, photographer Hani Goweili, into relief. They are her conditions of choice. She is not a talkative woman, but observant and intelligent as a poet should be. Why, then, does she invoke Paolo Coelho in the title of her book -- and that of the longest poem it contains, a gesture that might be read as loud and provocative? It is based on a true story, she explains: a poetess and her intimate companion, another Gihan -- both were named after Egypt's most controversial first lady, Gihan Sadat -- realise that sharing a name cannot in itself sustain a friendship and having failed to follow (Coelho's "alchemical") signs, part ways. It ends on a harrowing note, when the narrator's friend is strangled by an impoverished neighbour eager to steal her jewellery.
