Structures and Visions

“The aim of this book is to offer readers a comprehensive academic reference where specialists, students, and researchers in the literary and critical affairs can refer to the issues raised by the poet, and the strategies and rhetorical methods invoked by his writings.” The manuscript clearly contributes to scholars and students interested in learning about the Arabic language through the writings of renown poet Ali Abdullah Khalifa. Each chapter emphasizes the political, economic, historical, phonological, syntactical, and grammatical elements of Arabic morphology and literature. The final chapter by French poet and researcher Geneviève Buono displays the power of Khalifa’s writings and how well his poetry displays a determination to make meaning of the world. Khalifa offers clear and concrete similes to get his views across. He offers readers the opportunity to reflect on the written word and create their own interpretations through rhyme scheme and irony. His words are strung together to form sound, images, ideas, and meaning defined by 10 researchers through their meticulous analysis of his work. —Abdessattar Jamai, PhD
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Anyone interested in acquiring an appreciation of Arabic poetry should delve into this book. The authors of Structures and Visions turn each moment of Khalifa’s poetry into an emotional reality through a step-by-step explication of his writing. They examine with keen astuteness his language style and poetic skills. The resulting text, adeptly translated for the reader of English, emphasizes the uniqueness of Khalifa’s choice of words and unusual use of punctuation marks.
Nancy Owen Nelson, PhD: Poet, and memoirist, most recently Divine Aphasia: A Woman's Search for Her Father

If you are looking for poetry that merges language, culture, and history in a single poem, this book is for you. The analysis of Ali Abdullah Khalifa’s poetry is inviting and compelling as readers become deeply immersed in his life experiences and struggles resulting from the replacement of nature with modernized living.
Ed Demerly; author of First Years: A Farm Boy Faces the Future; past president of the College English Association.

Khalifa’s writing is deeply engaged with the world, specifically transformations driven by the demographic growth and conservational changes in Bahrain. His poetry and precise choice of words interconnect with various nostalgic elements, symbols, and images that provoke a reader’s curiosity.
L. Glenn O'Kray, retired college administrator and instructor, editor/co-editor of six books, the most current¬—Building America: Immigrant Stories of Hope and Hardship.