Black Goats in a Snow Field
This is the title of the seasonal issue 52 of the magazine Bikanal published by the House of Poetry in Rhône-Alpes, dedicated to forty-two Algerian poets representing various generations and sensibilities, in addition to visual artists, including Abdelkader Belkhourisat, Edith Burgi, Joudet Qsuma, and Sophie Grangoura, Doniz Martinez, and Wold Mohand, who contributed their works represented by goats accompanying the poems throughout the magazine’s pages.
The House of Poetry in Rhône-Alpes had previously published an anthology of Algerian poets in the same magazine in 2003 in issue 32, which included poems by Kateb Yacine, Mohammed Dib, Jamal Omrani, Tahar Djaout, Youssef Sebti, Habib Tangour, Jean Senac, Anna Griki, Jamaleddine Ben Cheikh, and others, alongside poems by female poets such as Zoubida Cherfi, Zaynab Labidi, Soumya Ammar Khodja, and Leila Naqshtali.
Issue 52 is distinguished by the addition of 13 female and male poets, considering the poetic voices that continue to grow and multiply to express passion, freedom, and love without “leaning on the wound.” Modern Algeria is teeming with poetry and female poets whose voices were few, even rare. This issue includes poems by Ait Menglat translated from Berber, Zaynab Al-Awaj, Nadia Nawasir, Ashour Fani, Ammar Meryash, Hakim Miloud, and Qader Rabia from Arabic, in addition to Bashir Haj Ali, Mohammed Bouhamidi, Ibrahim Haj Suleiman, Amin Khan, Anisa Mohammadi, and Samira Naqroush in French. The texts in this anthology are not equal; we find one text by Kateb Yacine, while the texts by other poets are more numerous. This is likely due to the House of Poetry’s lack of access to a catalog of Algerian poets with awards and significant poetic experiences translated into French.
Black Goats in a Snow Field: An Anthology of Algerian Poetry
