Songs from Two Continents is a paean on 'dualities'. Here, Europe and Asia entwine, life and death stalk each other, nationalities fuse and Good and Evil wrestle relentlessly to give meaning to existence. Like such pathfinders as Nzim Hikmet and Orhan Veli before him, Moris Farhi adheres to the ethos of Turkish folk poetry - that poetry should be the pure distillation of emotions. From carnal desire to tender love, from rapture to sorrow and from mysticism to mundanity, he endeavours to expose, in the raw, the essence of our sensibilities. Imbued with the Levantine spirit, Moris Farhi enquires into such themes with his irrepressible sensual verve and passionate intelligence - whether in maturity or in the rambunctious years of youth.
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[many paths lead to God / mine is through the flesh (PATHS TO GOD]***
(Saqi Books, 16 January 2012, borrowed from my library)
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This is my first time reading the poet.
I thought Songs from Two Continents was okay but nothing special.
Many of the poems are quite sensual, bordering on semi-erotic. I'm not a prude but didn't really like this. I'm sure the poet could have put his message across without using smut. I just found some of the poems distasteful.
The themes explored are universal and the poems were easy enough to understand - just - Bleugh!
One of the best things about reading poetry is how deep they can be, a great poem can move you more than a 100,000 word novel. Unfortunately, I didn't get a deeper feeling from any of the poems here.
