a trip inside the soul

“Poetry is the soul of the Arabs,” says Ghazi al-Gosaibi. “That is no poetic exaggeration: whatever troubles that soul is reflected, magically, in the poetry. Reading Arabic poetry, therefore, is not an idle exercise. It is a trip inside the Arab soul.”

Ghazi al-Gosaibi, Saudi Arabian poet, ambassador to the UK

from Of Poets, Prophets, and Politics