Osama Kamal attends an evening of poetry to commemorate the venerable Salah Jahin A night to remember: Bahaa Jahin, Ahmed Haddad and Belal El-Sheikh perform on the 80th anniversary of the birth of legendary poet Salah Jahin, right Salah Jahin consorted with the poor, sympathised with the underclass, envisioned a future of perfection, and found hope even in the darkest moments of defeat. He died aged only 56 in 1986, but his poetry remains as popular today as it was during his lifetime. Jahin was not just a poet: he also was a script writer, songwriter, and cartoonist, an actor, and a man who knew how to live life to the fullest. On Wednesday 26 December, the Beit Al-Shaer (House of Poetry), the cultural establishment recently created in Beit Sitt Wasila behind the al-Mosque Azhar, held a night of poetry and music to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Jahin's birth. Attending the event were descendants of Salah Jahin and Fouad Haddad, the two great poets who were close friends in life and whose families remain close today. Jahin's son and grandson, Bahaa and Omar Jahin, were present, as were Haddad's son and grandson, Amin and Ahmed Haddad. With the exception of Omar, who is an actor and composer, as well as professor at the Institute of Theatrical Art, all the people there were poets. Belal a El-Sheikh and his band, Sehr Al-Sharq (Oriental Magic), performed some of the songs Jahin had written. Abdel-Moati Hegazi, 75, the veteran poet and director of the House of Poetry, who used to work with Jahin on the popular magazines Rose Al-Youssef and Sabah Al-Kheir, said that Jahin was more than a patriotic or even left-wing poet. "Salah Jahin may have been the voice of Egypt, but he was also the voice of humanity," Hegazi said. "He was the voice of the people in fact and fiction, and his commitment to national legacy never eclipsed his commitment to humanity as a whole. Jahin is indebted to the two world-class poets Lorca and Paul Eluard, and of course to the Egyptian poets Ahmed Shawqi and Bayram El-Tonsi." Jahin is still regarded by many as the uncrowned king of Egyptian colloquial poetry, some of his poems having achieved iconic status in Egypt and the Arab world. "Jahin's generation, the generation of the 1950s and 1960s, is unparalleled in terms of dedication to art and culture," Hegazi said. "It was a generation that equated creativity with humanism and rose above the narrow confines of their country. Jahin's poetry can be read in any language because it has inner beauty and a humanitarian feel that transcends geographic boundaries." At the event Hegazi read out part of Jahin's Oghneya lel Qahira (A Song for Cairo). Ahmed Haddad, the grandson of both Salah Jahin and Fouad Haddad, says that everything Jahin did came from the heart. Even when he did some acting he took roles in which he practically impersonated himself, as one can see in the 1962 film Shahid al-Hob al-Ilahi (Martyr of Divine Love) and in La Waqta lel Hobb (No Time for Love), made in 963, and Al-Mamalik (Mamluks) which followed in 1965. Of all the art forms in which Salah Jahin engaged, poetry came first, followed by cartoons, which mostly echoed with the same sentiments one finds in his poetry, notably compassion for the underprivileged and the disadvantaged. During the event Ahmed Haddad and Bahaa Jahin read out the epic poem Ala Esm Masr (In Egypt's Name), one of the most evocative poems ever written about Egypt. Sheikh, who graduated from the College of Musical Education in 2008 and is now professor of the oud and Arab singing at the Sawi Culture Wheel, said that Jahin and Haddad were the most influential colloquial poets of their generation. He is particularly a fan of Al-Leila al-Kabira (The Big Night), the popular operetta Jahin wrote for the puppet theatre. "You can't have a night for Jahin without performing Al-Leila al-Kabira," Belal remarked. For many, including Sheikh, Jahin was the poet of the 1952 Revolution. The songs written by Jahin and composed by Kamal al-Tawil for the iconic singer Abdel-Halim Hafez embodied the spirit of the 1952, and can even be considered as a musical chronicle of its events. Jahin wrote with a sense of joy and optimism. Among his most popular songs are the 1956 Ehna al-Shaab (We are the People) ; Bel Ahdan (Embraced) written in 1961 ) ; Al-Masoulia (Responsibility) in 1963; Ya Ahlan bel Maarek (Welcome battles) in 1965 and Sura (Photograph), written in 1966. Omar Jahin said that his grandfather considered the Rubayat (Quatrains) to be his masterpiece, and often said that it would outlive him. The reason Jahin's work is still as relevant today as it was 30 or 40 years ago is that it has a philosophical content that transcends time. Amin Haddad and Omar Jahin read out the first part of the Rubayat. True enough, it felt as if it were written only yesterday.
