Reading Local Seattle

{ Maged Zaher, 12/10, 7:30, Open Books }

By Dana Guthrie Martin

Maged Zaher was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, where he earned an M.Sc. degree in structural engineering, specializing in computer-aided design. In 1995, he led the team that did the analysis of the seismic effect on the Meridian high-rise hotel in Giza, Egypt. In 1998 he earned a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Akron, Ohio. He has worked at many large software companies, and participated in building products such as AutoCad, Hotmail, Windows Presentation Foundations and Microsoft Student. His main areas of interest are API (Application Programming Interface) design and building scalable, and flexible SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) systems. His collaboration with Pam Brown, Farout Library Software, was published by Tinfish Press in 2007. Zaher will read from his debut collection, Portrait of the Poet as an Engineer, recently released by Pressed Wafer, Thursday December 10th, at Open Books in Seattle.

Dana Guthrie Martin: Your first language is Arabic, and you wrote poetry only in Arabic until about 10 years ago. Why did you make the switch to writing poetry in English, and how has that affected your writing? Do you still write in Arabic at all?

Maged Zaher: This is an important question. I switched for multiple reasons:

1. I didn’t think my Arabic poetry was any good. I was under the influence of the poets I read then, and my work was purely derivative. A new language was a new beginning of sorts.
2. More important, in Arabic there is a split between the written and spoken languages. Imagine if you are using the language we are using now for talking, but when you write you do so in Medieval English; quite a split, isn’t it? — the attraction of the English language was that I can write in the same vernacular that I speak in. This is why you find a fascination with the colloquial in my English poems.

I think this gamble (the switch) paid off for a while, early on, especially, because of the freshness of the language for me. There were (and still are) words that fascinate me. Some are probably average or banal words for the native speaker, but for me they are great finds: This freshness and sense of discovery fueled my work for a while. I believe the first year I wrote almost every day, and when I read these poems now, I find lots of poetic innocence and naïveté that actually embarrass me a bit but also excite me again.

I think I brought the Arabic language music within me to English. I wasn’t aware of that until my friend Leonard Schwartz pointed it out to me. I was reading at Evergreen College, and I recited some traditional Arabic poems then read my own English poems. Leonard noticed that both used the same rhythm. I write very little in Arabic nowadays, but I read a lot in it.

DGM: Your first collection focuses, among other things, on language. You specifically dedicated the book to the Arabic language. Can you talk about that choice of dedication?

MZ: The Arabic language brings me joy that I miss sometimes in English, especially in response to humor and pop songs. The dedication was somehow a hint to the reader that the Arabic language is still operating within the text. Read it as a warning sign: This is not a pure English text, even if it looks like one. (There is a personal component to the dedication, but I think it doesn’t matter much here.)

DGM: What do you see as the primary function of language: to estrange or to connect, or it is both? And can we ever push language into service toward one or the other ends of this scale?

MZ: Dana, this is a tough question. I believe we share the same doubt in language’s ability to connect. I would think though that within a specific context (a specific language game), language works.

For example, in software, if we defined our words and domain model accurately, we can build meaningful sentences within that domain. But in the field of human experience, I think language can still connect, yet there are lots of traps embedded within this perceived connection. Poetry becomes even more interesting because there are both aesthetics and ethics at work at any time. I would use my friend Jon Delcourt’s words: “There are poems that, when you read them, they unleash a field of energy.” I think this is what I respond to in poetry; this field of energy that some texts bring with them. I am not sure if I answered the question.

DGM: You have studied engineering at the graduate level, and you have studied philosophy extensively. I think at about this time last year, you were taking a college-level history course. Some poets immerse themselves in studying poetry and seem to know little else about the world. You have said that as a poet, it’s better to study topics other than poetry, which you clearly model in your own life. How have these areas of study informed your writing?

MZ: Did I really say that? — This sounds terrible. I have no right to tell any body what to do with their reading time.

On a personal level, though, I have an interest in philosophy and I am also an engineer by trade. I think these different disciplines gave me — at least — vocabulary. As you probably noticed, my poems draw on a number of sources (corporate speak, software, philosophy, colloquialism, etc.) — simply the vocabulary I am exposed to in my everyday life.

But it is not just vocabulary; certain patterns of music also come into play due to the different rhythms of the languages of different domains.

DGM: You’ve done your share of collaborative writing, including writing a chapbook with Pam Brown. What do you like about collaborative writing?

MZ: Collaborative writing gave me beautiful friendships: Pam Brown and Jon Delcourt, and others. I think there is an amount of power sharing and generosity and frustration in collaborative writing that I appreciate a lot.

I remember when Pam was feeling that one poem was going too Catholic for her taste, because of all the religious symbols that I was introducing, and how we negotiated this a bit, and still managed to produce a poem. There is also amazing joy when the two collaborators are on the same page, and are passing the buck to each other elegantly. There is a certain playfulness that is very joyful. As a life experience, it was also amazing. I had many lousy days where finding an email from Pam with two extra lines added to our ongoing work was the best thing ever and was enough to get me going again.

Collaborative writing also takes out the pressure of having to fill the page by yourself. It is a mutual ownership, and usually the process necessitates writing one or two lines at a time, which feels much easier and doable than filling a full page. (Of course, this means that some poems will be more successful than others.)

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Dana Guthrie Martin has been described as akin to “watching someone eat their young only probably a lot prettier.” She and her husband share their home with two hermit crabs, their robot, Feldman, and their hand puppets, Princess Baby Toes and Captain Baby Pants. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, and her chapbook, The Spare Room, is available from Blood Pudding Press.

Author: Reading Local: Seattle

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