Love's Slave, Stranger, Fool: A Love Poetry Reading

Love’s Slave, Stranger, Fool
The most beautiful, the most soulful, and the most ridiculous love poems will be presented this evening — in Arabic and German. They are by the Sufi poet Ibn-Arabi (the Goethe of the Arabic world), or by Fadhil al-Azzawi (who moved from Iraq to the GDR in 1977 and who now lives in Berlin). Women have put their own passionate descriptions of love into verse, from the Abassid princess Ulayya bind al-Mahdi (a half-sister of the Kaliph Harun al-Rashid) to the Palestinian poet Suheir Abu Aqsa with her poem „She was no virgin.“ Young and old Romeos and Juliets will die of love this evening on the narrow stage of the Ulme35 performance hall.
Musical accompaniment is provided by oud-player Nadim Sarrouh and Valentina Bellanova on the Ney, an Arabic flute.