Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Palestinian poet Dr Nina Abdul Razzak, in her most recent book, takes a step back and reflects on the spectrum of her experiences and emotions, hoping to connect with her readers on a deeper-than-ink level.
Nina’s book Stranded in Poetic Reflections was recently published and features 26 poems divided into four parts – existence, illness, old age and loss; things out there; love; and a personal melange.
“Stylistically, the poems are diverse, where many of them are of the free verse type, either with or without a rhyming scheme,” the 53-year-old mother-of-three writes in the preface to the book.
“There are also a few poems that could count as ballads, such as Hopeless but Happy, Like a Rainbow, and Revival.
“A couple of odes are also included within the collection, such as the poem The Loving Mother: Powerful but Tender and the poem The Dead Sea.”
Meanwhile, the poem I Stand by Your Grave, which she dedicates to the memory of her lost father, comes close to being an elegy.
The variety of poems were each inspired by a true story or emotional state and highlight the poet’s personal reflections on human experiences around relationships, love and forgiveness, happiness, illness, motherhood, existence and old age.
She hopes that, through her poems, readers will not only relate to her experience, but also feel inspired to themselves reflect on things that matter most in life.
“Usually the idea for a poem comes out of the blue, like an inspiration from somewhere, either when I’m about to fall asleep or when waiting in the airport for a flight or when just sipping on a cup of tea reflecting about some experience in deep thought,” the poet, who currently works with the Bahrain Education and Training Quality Authority, told GulfWeekly.
“The first few lines or couple of stanzas follow. After that, I quickly rush to jot them down somewhere because I have a very bad memory.
“This is often followed with a period of separation in which I distance myself from my lines of poetry, only to return to them at a later time, read them to myself to see how they sound, and then continue adding to them.”
Nina started writing poetry when she was 13 or 14 years old, and counts, amongst her role models and inspirations, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, American poet Robert Frost and Palestinian poet Tamim Al-Barghouti.
This is Nina’s fourth book after Displaced Treasures: A Collection of Poems of Exile, A Year to Forget: A Year Spent in Agony and My Rights Are Divine: A Closer Look at Children’s Rights in the Muslim Arab World.
“My first book, another collection of poems, revolved around one main theme - my status as a third-generation Palestinian refugee, focusing on the pain of having ancestors uprooted from their homeland and the challenges and difficulties of being born, and living one’s life, as an exile,” she added.
“The poems in my newly published book, in contrast, are varied in topics and points of emphasis. They express a plethora of feelings, philosophical stands, and insights on life aspects and experiences in general.”
Nina was previously an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Leadership at the Bahrain Teachers’ College at Bahrain University.
She is also a reviewer on several international scientific journals and is the founder and managing editor of her own international peer-reviewed journal, the Journal of Teaching and Teacher Education.
The book is now available on the publishers’ website at Ukiyoto.com and will soon be available on other websites including Amazon.com.
