Poetry Slam

Tonight was poetry slam night at the American Cultural Center in Jerusalem. We showed up to see what it was about, and had a wonderfully crazy evening with laid back people (mainly Americans). There was free popcorn and coffee/ tea, but most importently free wine, cus everybody knows poetry is best enjoyed with a glass of wine.

The two "proper" contesters reading aloud, one in Hebrew
and the other translating to English.

There were only two contesters, so the MC/ confrencier also joined. Though he still more or less ran the show with his welcome-song, choosing-the-judges-song, and the great spontaneous-haiku-song. All very silly and very funny.

The MC singing his spontaneous-haiku song. The winning poem of this round was:
Oh no what is this
I don't know how to do it
Oh shit I did it

Oh, and the American Center has a lending library! As in we can go there and borrow books and DVDs! And sit there and read. This is one of the things I've missed in Jerusalem.

Arabic poetry night

The French Culturel Centre and the Educational Bookshop arranged an evening for Arabic poetry. Three poets were supposed to come, but only one made it - and he read aloud from some of his poems in FusHa, The Most Eloquent Arabic. I didn't understand much, except the main theme of each poem, but I enjoyed the sound of the language. And was amused when he switched to Palestinian dialect to introduce the next poem or talk with the audience.

The poet reciting one of his poems.

After a short break came a man with his 3oud and played and sang for us. He played the 3oud differently from what I have come to know as Arabic style with lots of ornamentations, rather he used harmony (though the transarent, thin kind) and few, pure notes. The audience wished for some songs, and sang along on the refrain, a very sweet habit I also experienced in Cairo.


The exit was through the Educational Bookshop, and of course we had to stop and look at all the tempting books. We managed to only bring one home, on Naji al-Ali and his cartoon character Hanthala. (Take a look here to read about al-Ali and Hanthala.)