YEMEN UPDATE

 

As an AIYS fellow, I went to Yemen from June1994 -May, 1995 conducting pre-dissertation fieldwork on folk poetryand audiocassette culture in Yafi', a mountainous region north ofAden. Having heard cassettes of Yafi'i poets sparring to musicalaccompaniments in Sanaa, Aden, and Sai'un before even arriving inYafi', I decided to investigate the role of cassettes in theproduction of poetry in Yafi' and the impact of the technology onculture in Yemen since their flourescence some thirty years ago.After renting a house in Lab'us, the principal administrative centerfor Upper Yafi', I began interviewing local poets and residents abouttrends in poetry as well as about the rich historical and culturalbackground of the area.

In addition to collecting poems andanecdotes about the major Yafi'i poets of the past, I began to focusspecifically on the lives and works of the two most popular Yafi'ifolk artists alive today: the prolific cassette-poet Shayf al-Khalidiand the musician Husayn 'Abd al-Nassar. These two have cooperativelyproduced an uninterrupted series of cassettes &emdash; at an averageof one cassette every three months &emdash; since 1979, a record thatto my knowledge is approached by only one other pair of poets fromDhamar. There are at least two factors that distinguish theunderlying orientation of this series from that of other folk-poetrycassettes. First, this series has increasingly featured satire poetry(hija'), known in the colloquial as bid'-wa-jawabpoetry, in which one poet composes a qasõda and then sendsit to a second poet who responds with the same meter and rhyme. Thechallenges and retorts, hilarious jests, and incisive social andpolitical commentaries of these poems make them extremely popularamong audiences. Second, the 'Abd al-Nassar series features poetrythat is exchanged between poets from regions all over Yemen andespecially the prominent tribal regions between Sanaa and Aden, therespective capitals of former North and South Yemen. The effect ofsuch a sustained, extended, popular dialogue &emdash; one impossiblewithout the cassette medium &emdash; is that of a plurality oftribesmen qua citizens, all from different regions and all debatingabout the same issues. Correspondingly, the themes, styles,semantics, and lexicons of this inter-regional exchange tend toreflect transitions from more parochial folk poetry to a more widelyaccessible, popular poetry. One of the most recurrent themes in thispoetry has been the state of the nation and related issues andevents.

A third distinctive feature of this cassetteseries is that most of the featured poets, while of rural and tribalbackgrounds, spend significant periods of their lives in heavilyurbanized areas and abroad in neighboring Gulf countries. Themusician Husayn 'Abd al-Nassar, for example, lives permanently in AbuDhabi and produces and distributes cassettes from there. While thepoets whom he features often maintain literary images as illiterateshepherds fully immersed in rural life, they are using the latestmedia and communications technologies to facilitate the production oftheir identities as tribesmen. Ultimately, the more urbanized,cosmopolitan themes and producers of this cassette series make it afruitful site for comparison with more traditional poetry that is notproduced for cassette distribution.

In addition to conducting research into thecontent of Yafi'i cassette-poetry, I have been interviewingcassette-outlet owners and distributers mostly in Aden in order toget a sense of the entire production process, the market, the legalissues involved, consumer preferences, etc. One of my central goalswill be to theorize how developments in the recording industry overthe years has influenced not only poetry but, more generally,cultural and political discourses and related transformations inlocal and national identities.