A Farmer's Chants

PrefaceA realistic imagination and narrative imagery transpire as the foundation of the prose poems of A Farmer's Chants. Poetry is a mirror, and the text is its vehicle; in its essential existence, the poetic text then is a large mirror. When we use prose to compose poetry, we create another mirror in actuality, and when we narrate our lyricism, we add an additional mirror to the entire process. Thus, narrative prose poetry represents a highly complex system of mirrors, and in every poetic moment there is a mirror. This book embodies a narrative-lyric writing with a narrative structure on the surface and an internal lyricism. Everything in life aims to present itself in a fully trans-figurative state. Poetry too tries to self-present in full transfiguration. Freedom is of the essence for poetry and its total revelation. In the world of prose poetry, we come across the phenomenon of anti-narrative narrative writing. For me, the prose poem is a poetic text that is written as one horizontally shaped extension which depends on anti-narrative narrative writing as well as an abstract imaginary disclosure. In literature, there is poetry, prose, and in the middle, prose poetry, as identified according to the characteristics of the surface and structural elements of language. Every speech or its written form has a surface makeup which constitutes a basic structure, enabling our aural or visual perception, and a multifaceted structure which transforms our understanding to an analytic and semantic level. Poetry is distinguished by rhythmic surface and comprehensive structures. Prose on the contrary is characterized by unrhythmic external and multilayered structures. In prose poetry, then, we find the unrhythmic outward structure and the rhythmic internal one. It is these aspects through which this particular genre brings the concept of hybridity into the field of literature. In sum, prose poetry is a combination of prose and poetry and rhythmicity and non-rhythmicity. Prose poetry can be produced in a narrative or lyric manner. If the style is lyric on both surface and analytical levels, the outcome would be lyric prose poetry. If the style is narrative on those same levels, the literary product will be narrative prose poetry. However, the surface narrative structure can also be found within the analytical lyric structure. In this case, a hybrid genre will come about; namely, a narrato-lyric prose poetry, and as such, it will be the embodiment of a second hybrid inside the first hybrid of proso-poetry. Hence, in the context of narrato-lyric prose poetry, this book represents a hybrid inside a hybrid. The poems in this collection have been written between 2016 and 2018, and the cornerstone of their themes encompasses two conceptualizations: The impact of war on the soul and the glorification of an unassuming life. It may be said that A Farmer's Chants is an imaginary narrative of war's darkness and a realistic praise of simplicity. Anwer Ghani