Jawdat Rustom Haydar

The Inspired Poet

The history of his poetry is the history of a country that accompanied him in all his obsessions and sufferings, in his dreams and joys making his language rich with deep emotions that belong to the creative and wise. It flows on melodic lines from which buds come out followed by branches full of noble feelings and most of the human emotions and what surrounds them.

We definitely have to return to the time where he immigrated which had a positive impact on most of his poetic works. Thus, poetry became his path and he carried it deep down in his soul. If he was facing a big problem in his life, he would express his feelings from his sadness and his longings to his visions through poetry to pass them to us. Poetry is his only means to escape from his troubles; it is his safe haven.

We enter these phases that caused him pain every time he left his country and heat waves hit him one after the other and say: poetry had to be his companion and friend. However, what resulted from the painful distance which had a positive result, flowed from deep inside in enlightened poetry to return him to his longed past. But through nostalgia and sometimes through what he wrote, it feels like he flies back in time to the country that is still alive in his mind to revive the great soul that was beating in his body or the corners of his mind, the soul of his beloved country.

He sees in it the seasons of roses and lilies bending silently towards the river giving him a burst of inspiration with a cycle of inspiring words. The latter mount and expand their space to form once again writings full of harmony and expressions as colorful as a rainbow where the noble words flow in the cycle of poetry and fly high since they are the voice of inspiration in a life journey based on poetry. The latter resembles a magnificent sea flower with a clear image that carries a lot of positivity through which the poet aims at wakening the memory in every man who is away from his country to make him feel better through nostalgia. These human and patriotic values appear in the poetry that he conveys in an echoing language and in the transparency of sweet and eloquent words.

Jawdat Haydar knew how to give his poetry a real human dimension with words that subtly come together with many implications whereas other poets turn them into images that need very long explanations. He gave them a special mold in which he gathered the elements of beauty with a distinctive simplicity. It is the basis upon which he could express the intellectual and human truth with words that carry beauty in both their aesthetic and human dimension with a rhythm that follows the direction he chose creating and sculpting his words on the walls of his heart and its beats.

Yes, Jawdat Haydar was looking for this ray of light to be illuminated with the light of poetry. It is as if it was an invitation from above. It is clear that this kind of lyric poetry resonates in our ears reflecting the bitter reality and letting us see it with a pain we never felt before!!! We will undoubtedly feel nostalgia towards our heritage and our roots that unfortunately were about to vanish. Jawdat Haydar takes us back to our values through poetry. The evaluation of poetry is often divided in parts. Thus, we have to form a general view of it which is what Jawdat uses to take us to illuminated corners and high peaks through the content of his poetry. He wants it to sound pleasant to our ears and introduce us to the human dimensions he wants to convey. He inspires us the future by crossing through authentic poetry. He is a poet who holds the flags of humanity through the suffering of his soul and the beauty of music that fills the hearts with growing light.

We acclaim those who carve feelings and cover them with golden letters in order to stay immortal since they are chosen from this bright light. This way, it will be written in the history of memory forever where it neighbors the sky, embodied in him and his personality and mixed with his breath as it is thinner than the breeze. This way we highlight its beauty in the race of literary aesthetics.

Jawdat Haydar is a great poet and we sense this through reading his poems and knowing the truth of whoever wrote them to find the light through the letters of the words that mean a lot to us. They calm the spirit because he is the poet of truth and humanity. The words of his poetry are light like white butterflies fluttering between the soft wheat spikes enjoying their green color in a soil that grants them life to give their sacred nourishing fruits with all their magnificence. The words of his poetry call him and speak to him to forgive his belated answer to their invitation in all the corners of the world. Once he replies to them, they flow generously and once they appear, he smiles to them! All the good things come out of them abundantly because they were preserved in his soul until they shone on his white pages like pearls gathered by the hand of destiny that is the hand of the poet.

They are so beautiful because the harvest time has come to spread its treasures in the vast sky of poetry shining with a light that only attracts the inspired and authentic. The words of his poetry carry a lightning echo. Sometimes they are as violent as storms, winds and strong waves. They are charged with electricity to shine with their light on the walls of your heart not letting it relax from beating. These words are rebels that are hard to be tamed but he does not try to stop them because they harmoniously find their roots on his walls. He closes his eyes for a few minutes to make sure that they do not sleep and he murmurs to them with eagerness: “How can I sleep when I have a lot of poetry to read and write? It hits me deep down and radiates with unending sunlight to add brightness to my poetry!” Poetry is made of words with which I speak and say: “Slow down and bring me the sea water with its waves to purify myself so that you flow calmly…” The latter replies: “You are doing well… Beautiful words in poetry are the rebellious and strong ones and the ones that touch the soul… since you had nostalgia, you have been searching for the color of the shades of your country. You were bound by love; your cure was poetry, your blood its ink. Whenever the words flew, the longing was more intense and strong. Go on with your great works with my words that heal the wound of expatriation.”

This is the story!!! The story of the poets and the words that lead them to poetry and as soon as they settle, everyone takes his own direction of creativity. It is a wonderful story. His words are as sweet as honey. He is the bee that gives them their sweetness.

Jawdat Haydar excelled! His aim was to be generous in poetry and life. This was his intention. He made sure it was not petty or mediocre and only accepted its brightness and beauty. He has his ways to reach his goal and the words continuously race to his door entering one by one whenever they reach his senses and then they embrace him like a passionate lover embracing his beloved. They generously flow on the lines from his pure heart, his deliberate will and brilliant inspiration. They sweeten each other and secretly correspond with each other. Every time his creativity excels, he becomes more and more modest to facilitate its flow again so that it becomes closer to him than ever. Pure and meaningful poetry mixes with him in a way that words cannot describe. When they become more intense, he recites his poetry as if he were speaking with angels. To connect with them, he approaches them truthfully and with a look from them, he sings his poems with them and they become the song of life that he is keen of.

He invites Keats and Milton to visit paradise which means his country that he was taken away from on a dark moonless night.

The words of his poetry get out of the tunnel of his insides that are filled with it. They are like a compass that should be followed for its exemplary values. These words preserve all human values and nature from harm and pollution.

They are full of images that stimulate our imagination. We admit they are amazing!

His relationship with the word is full of love and intimacy to the extent of becoming one. It reflects the passion for poetry in his eyes and his heart takes refuge in it like someone looking for security. We have an unending meeting with words since his love for the country and the land is unlimited. Jawdat Haydar is the guardian of words. Poetry for him is absolute freedom.

A Lebanese poet who dedicated himself to writing poetry throughout his life to fight against injustice and stand by the oppressed and also fight against intolerance, violence, hatred and racial discrimination. He was a beacon supporting human rights organizations that according to him have to be credible and impartial to protect people. There is no confusion and ambiguity in this. His poetry is a gift to people and a message of love to all humanity. He transmitted it through his writing as if he were asking himself: “How long will we have this moral and ethical debacle when we do not respect human rights??? How long will they be violated??? This is what brought him closer to the principles and concepts of the great Yusuf al-Azmah and a line parallel to him in order to write and share certain common grounds to build countries where principles and freedom prevail. It is normal that he had this patriotic spirit and high morals. His hard work has many connotations to revolution against corruption, corruptors and the corrupted and those who in his opinion constitute a real danger to the country. We can call him the “poet of humanity”.

Did geography write the destiny of Jawdat Haydar who read the geography of his country very carefully??? This reading was the crossing point to the foreign country he loved. Thus, he joined the two countries together in his creative poetry.

Jawdat Haydar loves nature that is his muse. He is the poet who got used to go to meadows and fields before dawn to breathe the fresh air and drink the fresh water and meditate in nature and its beauty looking for the vision of aesthetics and contemplating the amazing ruins of his city “The city of the sun” that are the eternal ruins of this country built in timeless stones and luminous structures. On this land of the sun, sunlight spreads its golden rays on the beautiful and green Bekaa valley, with its magnificent brilliance under the thick trees that embrace each other as if the western wind could not dare approaching them…

Jawdat Haydar also wrote a poem in memory of his wife, the inexhaustible source of love embodied in the present will that defies the tragedies of fate and symbolizes utmost dignity and self-esteem.

He stood there caressing nature and his soul flew in the beautiful atmosphere to a world of eternity inspiring him of a lifetime with his beautiful bride “Maliha” with whom he united to spread good learning and moral education. Their science is the one of national obligations in particular and human ones in general. For them, these are morals that every being who works in the field of his small and bigger country should be endowed with.

Hail the green meadows with their water that he loves… Hail his majestic height like the tall trees with their shade. They are proud of their roots, branches and fragrance that he loves too.

Hail the hills and plains in his land that carries treasures full of pride and greatness because with its giant cedar tree it symbolizes the country. Jawdat Haydar belongs there and has given it honour. He left bundled up it with his poetry and continued his path to enlighten the whole world… but the sun of his country still rose behind the high mountains on the hills and plains he loved. It is from there that his beautiful soul was inspired and he launched his wonderful journey to the world of eternity.

Dédé Hourani · Collected writings.