The Inner Rhythm in Non-metric Free Verse: Seven Poems (Sabcu Qasa:id) of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra as a Sample

Abstract

Objectives: This paper tackles the concept of inner rhythm in “Seven Poems” (Sabcu Qasa:id) of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra which shows an advanced stage of his non-metric free verse, replacing meter and rhyme with inner rhythm, which depends on ideas, that develop along this poetic collection and can be traced easily through its seven poems that are numbered from 1 to 7 as if they were stanzas of one long poem.

Method: This paper tracks the main idea of this poetic collection, which is the inevitability adhering of opposites, showing their presence in the collection, forming an alternative rhythm.

Results: In this poetic collection, opposites adhere through people bypassing joy and sorrow, happiness and misery and their synonyms in their lives fairly and normally. This accompany was expressed through two semantic dominant fields in an equal distribution through this collection and its stanzas as they both were reproduced and developed, so every poem led to the next one, reproducing the same idea without any conflict, and with normalizing the juxtaposition of contrasts in the human life.

Conclusion: Jabra replaced the rhythm of meter and rhyme with an alternative rhythm which depends on meaning, in a systematic way and intentional state of reproducing the ideas.