Al-Aqsa Flood and the Flood of Meaning, A reading in the collection of Those Paths by the poet Abdel Malik Boumendjel

Abstract

   The epic of the Al-Aqsa flood, with all its predicates and repercussions, has allowed Arab poets to release their artistic energies and reveal the potentials of creativity and beautiful as well as epistolary speech. The poets’ poems have also demonstrated the many roles that poetry performs in building a nation’s awareness and the sense of belonging.                                          Through an extrapolation of the poetic moments that accompanied the events with all their destruction, killing, extermination, displacement outcomes together with the enemy’s false claims and misleading compaigns, on the one hand, and the images of bravery, martyrdom and resistance presented by the Gazan people, one can discern a number of textual phenomena.  What draws attention when reading the texts of some Algerian poets is the interaction, honesty and depth in dealing with such a solemn event. The poets conjured images that transcended the literal flood to solidarity, support, and identification with the amazing event; and from there, a flood of meanings and connotations exploded. Therefore, we decided, through this research space, to provide a reading of some poetic texts from the collection of those paths by the Algerian poet Abdelmalek Boumendjel.