A Pinch of Black Pepper over White Jasmine
Damascus, ST_ The Lebanese poetess, and TV presenter Dr. Abir Charara, has signed her poems collection entitled “Black Pepper”, in the capital of Jasmine, Damascus, under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, on the 31st of March.
The occasion was marked by Dr. Charara reading a beautiful selection of her poems from “Black Pepper”, in the Arabic Cultural Center, Abu Rumana. She has initiated the reading by a poem dedicated to Damascus, the city she loves.
Followed by, a reading of her inaugural poem “Not a prelude’, which I have translated a part for our Anglophone audience:
“In my spare hours, I don’t find a café bearing my words
Cafés are for absence and absentness
Or for sober words
Embellished embroidered words
(Bliss sleep)
(Nice dreams)
I don’t find what to fill with my soul and emptiness
Not even Black pepper could be enough
To change the taste of this deceptive world”
A critical reading was done by the writer and drama director, Mr. Samer Esmaeil, elaborating the narrating methods of the poetess Abir Charara, the thematic points of her poems and the metaphors she uses to mimic her dreams.
The tasty evening ended with Dr. Charara signing her poem collection and interaction with her loving Syrian audience, who also know her well from her TV program “Jars of words”.
Lama Alhassanieh