To the recently released
The NZZ am Sonntag writes about the poetry collection “Gedächtnishunde” by Ramy Al-Asheq:
"The war in Syria has spread Arabic poetry all over the world. Ramy Al-Asheq (*1989) is one of the countless people who had to flee in 2011 after the suppressed protest against Bashar al-Asad. Now he lives and writes poetry in Germany and forms beguilingly unwieldy language pictures from the devastation of war and the injuries of love. In the eponymous poem "Memory Dogs".
The war in Syria has spread Arabic poetry all over the world. Ramy Al-Asheq (*1989) is one of the countless people who had to flee in 2011 after the suppressed protest against Bashar al-Asad. Now he lives and writes poetry in Germany and forms beguilingly unwieldy language images from the devastation of war and the injuries of love. In the eponymous poem «Gedächtnishunde», the poet imagines an «opening / at the back of the head» that swallows «what we throw behind us / Like a vacuum cleaner / To retrieve everything in the form of dogs / that bite and bark at us (…) / And pee in every corner of the skull». The survivors can still speak, but they are not at peace. This is made palpable in the poem Survival, the heart of this impressive book about the disorder of the soul.”
Martina Läubli
NZZ on Sunday, April 28, 2019
