Summary

Alongside the multiline folk qaṣīdah (the topic of “Oral Poetry from Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula Part I: The Qaṣīdah”), multiple genres of strophic sung verse from Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula offer an arena in which social and political concerns are contested at public gatherings and celebrations. Not all such collective verses are political; many address topics of lyric and sentimental content and allow greater latitude for personal expression. A further category of strophic sung poems—in the form of work songs, lullabies, and popular ditties—accompanies daily life. Although these songs originated as oral expressions of intimate sentiment, they increasingly embraced a sophisticated and cosmopolitan tone in from the mid-20th century onwards. Finally, poetry composed in the unwritten Modern South Arabian (MSA) languages of Yemen and Oman offers a counterpoint to poetry from Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula that has been composed in Arabic. Unlike Arabic literary and vernacular poetry, poetry in MSA languages has evolved without reference to a written and literary tradition; consequently, it manifests features that suggest its primary orality. Starting in the early 2000s, MSA-language-speaking poets began to experiment with writing their poetry; this experimentation has led to shifts in form and content as aspects of the written text-concept have taken root in their poetic practice.