Poetry can ease Egypt’s turmoil

Ziada: Poetry always came first for me Cairo - Khaled Hassanein Egyptian poet Doaa Ziada has celebrated the release of her new collection, Rose-Bound, with a book signing at downtown Cairo’s Tanmeya bookshop. Referring to the tense political surroundings, Ziada said: "I did not hesitate about releasing my collection at this time because, who knows, it could relieve our exhausted psyches and take us back to better times so we can forget.” Love and relationships dominate the themes of Rose-Bound. "It is a normal human relationship, just as the two wings of life should behave,” Ziada said. “What else can we write about, if not about love, life, women and marriage?" Ziada published two collections of short stories before turning to poetry, but now prefers the form. "Poetry is more personal for me,” she told Arabstoday, “poetry came first in my life and I have been writing poems since my childhood.” Referring to her earlier body of work, Ziada said: “I used to write with a great deal of spontaneity: from my head, straight onto the paper. I did not even edit it, so it came out with a spontaneity and naïveté fitting for a writer’s early work.” “It was different with the second short story collection. I focused on the details, move sentences around, change endings, sometimes cut things out,” she said. "What is most important to me in a poem is the poetic atmosphere and the deep, trimmed language,” Ziada told Arabstoday.