Al-Bardouni.. An inspiring biography of a poet who turned history into a poem

In 1929, in the village of Al-Bardouni in the Dhamar Governorate in northern Yemen, Abdullah Saleh Al-Bardouni was born. He did not know that he would carry the shadow of his village in his name, but he would make his voice transcend its borders to distant horizons. It was his fate to live in the dark since the age of five, after he contracted smallpox, which caused him to lose his sight. However, life gave him, in return, a third eye that sees with penetrating insight, beyond the limits of ordinary vision.

In his childhood, the blind child was not like others. He had a keen mind and an amazing memory. He became attached to the language and loved reciting the Qur’an. His sweet voice filled the mosque with special reverence.

Al-Bardouni began his education in the village's Kuttab, where he received lessons in jurisprudence and the Arabic language. He then joined the Shamsiya School in Dhamar, and the doors of knowledge gradually opened before him, despite the obstacles imposed by the backward Yemeni reality at that time.

The Road to Sana'a... the Gateway to Great Transformation

Dhamar was only the beginning of Al-Bardouni’s rise to fame, before he moved to Sana’a, the city that gave him a broader horizon for studying at Dar Al-Ulum.

There, Al-Bardouni devoted himself to reading the best of Arabic poetry, from Imru’ al-Qais to al-Mutanabbi and al-Ma’arri, and found himself closer to the latter, that blind philosopher who turned his back on the world. But Al-Bardouni was not as ascetic as al-Ma’arri, but rather was immersed in the details of reality, recording it in his poems, and criticizing it with a boldness that no one in Yemen had ever done before him.

Al-Bardouni loved Sana'a, but he saw it as a city being renewed in ruins. He wrote about it in one of his most famous poems: "What can I say about Sana'a, my father?" "Beautiful, her lovers are tuberculosis and scabies." In his eyes, Sana'a was an image of the entire country, a country growing old under the burden of poverty, and falling under the sword of tyranny, but remaining alive, stubborn, clinging to its roots like coffee trees in its towering mountains.

Al-Bardouni in the heart of the stormy transformations

Al-Bardouni lived through the stormy political transformations that Yemen went through, starting from the monarchy and ending with the republic. However, he was not a poet of power, but rather a poet of the people. He continued to attack injustice, address societal issues, and criticize mistakes in a sarcastic and biting manner.

The poet Abdullah Al-Bardouni was bold in confronting the authorities, and did not hesitate to direct his sharp words at Imam Ahmed bin Yahya Hamid al-Din, the last king of the priestly imamate, who was nicknamed “Ahmed Ya Janah.” On the tenth anniversary of his accession to the throne, after the failure of the 1948 revolution that sought to overthrow him, Al-Bardouni recited verses that carried a warning and a threat, saying:

Eid Al-Adha, make your country heard.. It asks you where is its happiness, is it there?

Why are you silent, while half of your people are here being healed, and half of the peoples are scattered?

Yes, he was a free voice at a time when Yemenis were wanted to live with injustice and be silenced. Therefore, he was always besieged, sometimes banned from traveling, sometimes threatened, but he did not stop telling the truth.

Poetry.. Al-Bardouni’s identity and his weapon in confronting tyrants

Al-Bardouni wrote poetry because it was the only way to express his vision of the world. He was not a sentimental poet who sang of love or romance, but rather a poet of major issues, narrow streets, poor alleys, and cafes where simple people gathered. He was a poet of Yemen with all its contradictions, so his language was a mixture of classical eloquence and wounded modernity, where deep images and philosophical symbols meet with a simple language that reaches everyone.

His most prominent collections

Considering Al-Bardouni’s legacy, it can be said that he went beyond being a poet to being a poetic historian of Yemen, as he monitored the social, political and economic transformations in his collections of poems, which formed a unique literary document, the most prominent of which are:

“From the Land of Bilqis”: This collection was the first announcement of a unique poetic talent.

"On the Path of Dawn": It carried a revolutionary spirit influenced by the events in Yemen.

"For the Eyes of Umm Bilqis": An embodiment of the image of the homeland in the form of an epic woman.

"Travel to the Green Days": A return to nostalgia and the search for a lost Yemeni dream.

"A Time Without Quality": A scathing critique of the deteriorating political and social reality.

“Sandy Translation of Dust Weddings”: a title that reflects Al-Bardouni’s ability to achieve deep symbolic abstraction.

"Other Creatures of Longing": A Philosophy of Nostalgia and Futility.

"The Lamp's Escape": Meditations on Time, Death, and the Uncertain Future.

Al-Bardouni the philosopher

Al-Bardouni was not a traditional poet, but rather a philosopher wearing the mask of a poet, contemplating time, life and death with a mixture of sarcasm, mockery and bitterness. His poems were sometimes imbued with the philosophy of the absurd, as he raised questions without answers, and believed that reality was more complex than to be reduced to a single ideology or political vision.

Departure.. and the last lamp goes out

On August 30, 1999, Al-Bardouni departed this world, but his words continued to light up the darkness. He lived like a blind man who saw more than those with sight, and he wrote about reality with ink of fire, until he became a symbol for every free intellectual, and for every poet who did not submit to authority, money, or prestige.

At his funeral, the Yemenis marched chanting his verses, as if they were bidding him farewell with his words, while Sana'a was sad, as if it had lost the greatest one who sang for it.

An immortal legacy in the Yemeni and Arab memory

Al-Bardouni was not just a Yemeni poet, but an Arab poet and a global humanitarian. His words transcended the borders of his country, reaching everyone who seeks freedom, and who sees poetry as a light in a tunnel, a voice against tyranny, and a cry in the face of silence.

Today, a quarter of a century after Al-Bardouni’s passing, his name is still present and his poems are still echoing throughout the horizon, embodying the fact that true words do not die, but rather remain to defy oblivion.

Source: Yemeni Embassy website in Qatar