Fill cold winter nights with poetry

CAIRO – 4 January 2018: As the northern part of the earth is facing the coldest period of the year, Egypt Today presents a poetry reading list to pull through the cold and long winter nights.

“The Complete Poems of Emily Bronte” by Emily Bronte

Well known for her iconic novel “Wuthering Heights”, English Victorian writer Emily Bronte wrote dozens of poems about various themes.

Published for the first time in 1846 as a slim volume titled “Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell”, with the participation of her sisters Anna, and Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte’s poems were collected and edited after her death and released separately in 1941.

One of the most emotional poems in the volume is “Remembrance”. It talks about different ways of departure and love.

Also, Bronte’s style is highly figurative and emotional, she coined different magical images through her words, and she depended on catchy sounds to attract the reader.

Born in Yorkshire, England in 1818, Emily Bronte was one of the earliest female English writers in the history of English literature; her only novel “Wuthering Heights” is considered one of the greatest English literary works.

Emily Bronte with her sisters, Charlotte and Anna, formed one of the most celebrated trios in the history of literature.

“Letters from a Man in Solitary” by Nazim Hikmet

A long poem combined the bitter taste of loneliness and suffering in prison. The poem simply revolves around Nazim Hikmet’s feelings during his long imprisonment.

Hikmet documents his long days in prison, and he reminds himself of the beautiful time he spent with his wife.

Hikmet is a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and director; he was arrested many times due to his opposition to the empire. He died in Russia in 1963.

“A Portrait of A Lady” by T.S. Eliot

Adapted from “The Portrait of A Lady” novel by Henry James and published in 1915, T.S. Eliot expressed in the novel his point of view with his impressive iconic poetic perspective.

Published in 1880, the story of the novel revolves around a young lady named Isabel Archer who inherited a great amount of money, but shortly after she became a victim to two American expatriates.

While Eliot aims to criticize the social classes, especially the upper one, he also writes stories about a false failed friendship.

T.S. Eliot is one of the iconic American poets, playwright, novelist, and critic who contributed huge and rebellious works to English poetry.

He is widely known for “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Wasteland”.

“Balqees” by Nizar Qabani

One of the greatest Arabic poetry pieces in modern history, it was released as an elegy to Nizar Qabani’s wife Balqees who was killed in a suicide bomb attack in the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut in 1981.

Qabani harshly reviewed the barbaric history of early Arabic tribes, and their violent acts, and then narrates the bitter situation of Arab countries, and at the end recalled his memories with his wife, and mourned her death.