Colloquial Arabic Poetry, Politics, and the Press in Modern Egypt

Abstract

On 9 November 1956, a poem in colloquial Arabic appeared in the month-old Cairo daily al-Masāʾ. The poet was an unknown named Hamid al-Atmas, a carpenter from the Delta city of Damanhur. Entitled “That's It, I'm Off to the Battlefield,” al-Atmas's poem celebrated the worker as soldier, for British and French troops had just landed in Port Said. The narrator states that he will put down his tools—as will many laborers and craftsmen—to go and fight. Following victory, he will return to his shākūsh (hammer) and mingār (plane). This, he stresses, is a people's struggle.1 The point is made no less subtly through the poet's choice of language: the narrator's diction is based on that of shop, home, and street.