The HyperTexts
Olfa Drid
Olfa Drid (Olfa Philo) is an English teacher, a PhD scholar and a committed
poetess and thinker from Tunisia. Her passion is meditation of the ailments and aches of the
human race and her utmost target of writing is not art for art’s sake but to
trigger thoughts, question taken-for-granted facts, shake her readers’ hearts
and uplift their souls. Her poems have appeared in print and online reviews such
as The Poet Sanctuary (2009), The Voices Project (March 2014), The Sirens Call (April 2014),
Taj Mahal Review (June 2014), The Haiku Journal (June 2014),
S/tick Review (July 2014), Three Line Poetry (November 2014) and
The Recusant Journal (November 2014). She is an ex-international volleyball player and is also gifted in design
and interior decoration.
"I want to make it clear again for everyone that I’m a committed female poetess
whose objective is to voice the silenced stories of females, to shed light on
some so-to-speak taboo topics and to unveil some wrong deeds and behaviors
present in our society. I’m not here to write poems about the sexy lips, breasts
and thighs of women or about the beauty of nature for the sake of nature as many
poets do. I’m not here either to write poems from the perspective of men because
men’s voices are already loud and deafening and they don't need a woman to speak
on their behalf! I’m here to be the spokeswoman of the harassed, fooled,
aggressed, ignored, disrespected, objectified, marginalized and betrayed women,
whose voices are silenced for many reasons. I'm here too to resurrect some dead
hearts and souls, to provoke thoughts and to promote some ethical values
disappearing from our society. If some men don’t like my poems and my themes and
think that being published in international reviews is a matter of chance, they
can just 'dislike' me or 'hate' me, even though these options are not present in
this virtual space but they are present in everyone's heart."
Here is an extract from the acknowledgement page of Olfa Drid's recently
published book (Un)jailed, a
collection of poetry: "I would like to express my gratitude to all the real and
virtual persons whose hearts have beaten for mine when reading my poems and
whose minds fused orgasmically with mine when I tickled theirs. So heartfelt
thanks go to: Mike Burch, the volunteer mentor and humane poet and editor of the
online HyperTexts journal for presenting me as a featured poet in his spotlight
rubric and for publishing all the poems I wrote about the Palestinian cause."
You can preview and purchase the book by clicking the hyperlinked book title.
Daring is the writer who queries the taboo,
gives voice to the unvoiced,
speaks the unspeakable,
personifies the abstract and metaphysical,
words the 'unwordable',
unchains words from their definitions
and makes readers think of the unthinkable.
Euthanasia
Honesty is assassinated by travesty,
O please grant me euthanasia!
Loyalty is suffocated by fake royalty,
O please grant me euthanasia!
Shyness is kidnapped by slyness,
O please grant me euthanasia!
Trust is raped by lust,
O please grant me euthanasia!
The adulterer is protected
as the rogue is in vogue,
O please grant me euthanasia!
The heart migrated from the chest
to look for a safer & cleaner nest,
O please grant me euthanasia!
We've created a mess
'cause of webcam, GPS & IP address,
O please grant me euthanasia!
The wise is "crazified"
and the crazy is "deified",
O please grant me euthanasia!
The air has become obscene,
O please let me quit the scene!
Jailed
in my mouth, my tongue is
jailedjailedjailedjailed
how to compete with lies and vain speech?
in my head, my brain is
jailedjailedjailedjailed
too many shallow minds to teach
in my chest, my heart is
jailedjailedjailedjailed
too many black hearts to bleach
in my face, my worth is
jailedjailedjailedjailed
all other talents ‘him’ impeach
the ‘golden’ cage? my life is
jailedjailedjailedjailed
kids, kitchen & bed, the rest out of reach!
in my body, my soul is
jailedjailedjailedjailed
needs to break free and my bones breach
in/on earth, my body is
jailedjailedjailedjailed
for F R E E D O M
how long shall i screech?
Neither a pair of eyes to
bewitch some male
nor a pair of legs to display
for sale
I’m a vivid heart,
a transcending soul
to tickle your brain
&
your senses hail.
MAGNETIC
woman
magnetic woman
walking down the street
turning heads
blowing minds
blocking traffic
making hearts beat…
for her
some displayed their cars
and offered her rides
others displayed their
financial muscles and castles,
others couldn’t help
singing her praises
others with their
pants down tempted
her expectations
to rise!
but …
when she turned
a blind eye on them
they felt belittled
and darted her ears
with insults
blasphemies and
illicit words...
disgusted by
their incorrigible HEAT
by their awful offers unfit
she carried on her way
her head
held HIGH
laughing secretly
at their ‘shit’!
wondering about:
the frailty of those so–to-speak
‘proud’ lions at her sight
turning into sheep
about the domestic cats
metamorphosing
all of a sudden into wolves
about those barking dogs
hungry for her ‘meat’...
she knew she had such
power to have them
all under her feet
but just had pity
for those mere
‘puppets’ with neither
souls nor wit…
had they perceived the
beating diamond
she’s housing inside,
they would have been
dazzled by its light and
recovered reason and insight…
they
would have been ashamed of
the inert diamonds of
their trivial trade...
they would have been
ashamed of being unable
to hit their target…
ashamed of reducing themselves to
B E A S T S …
Gaza
shelling
shelling
shelling
barren land,
fruitless trees,
wingless birds,
eclipsed sun,
miniscule corpses,
entombed hopes,
decapitated present,
castrated future
death's specter
putrid territories
&
global silence…
Dead Life
Hey you, hurrying off to the doctor in case of flu or toothache,
what if you suffered like the people of Gaza from a chronic heartache?
Hey you, your kids have a lot of toys to play with and change their moods,
but kids like them in Gaza are being robbed of their innocent moments of
childhood!
Hey you, your kids are lucky enjoying food, shelter and comfy beds,
but parents in Gaza are traumatized by their kids' exploded stomachs and
heads!
Hey you, you're showing off your new brand-name clothes to your peers?
For their lifelong 'red uniforms', kids of Gaza are drenched in tears!
Hey you, you're complaining every now and then about a lack of fun?
What if your ears were deafened by the noise of rockets and guns!
Hey you, you shout and swear if your kids fall or bleed somewhere?
People of Gaza have been bleeding in silence for decades, as if No one does care!
Hey you, you feel humiliated if you don't celebrate your birthday every year
with friends, candles and a cake?
People of Gaza have only wakes and are burning candles daily for their land's
sake!
Hey you, you listen to music to calm down and release your stress?
People of Gaza have no other melody but the melancholic lyric of death!
Hey you, you're enraged because your lover didn't call you on the phone?
People of Gaza can only express their displeasure with a stone!
Hey you, you're reluctant to see horrible pictures of atrocities and scattered
body parts?
Will you survive a minute if your eyes witness your family members literally
falling apart?
Hey you, you're enjoying beer, marijuana and secret dating on Twitter and
Facebook?
Did you also swallow all the anesthetizing pills and poisoned hooks?
Hey you, you're hypnotized by the wide range of drama, thriller, soccer and porn
TV channels?
Why don't you become a pioneer in launching soul-uplifting,
intelligence-boosting and peace-promoting panels?
Hey you, do you feel frustrated when you miss a party or a famous star's show?
What if you lived a life where the sun never rises to melt the years of snow?
Hey you over there, proud of having two feet not four,
What makes you feel superior,
if your brain is (b)locked,
your tongue is tied and
your heart is congealed to the core?
The Oppressed
sigh
shout
roar
thunder
go mad
still,
you're seen as
nerds
starve
weep
complain
demonstrate
protest
cry
decry
sue
claim to be
victims of plunder
still,
you're
unheard
revolt
smoke
drink
shrink
immolate
emigrate
struggle
smuggle
kneel
steal
kill
beg
spy
lie
die
explode
become toads
sleep in the road
commit foolish blunders
still,
you're perceived as
a herd
When hearts burst asunder &
stones dwell in the Rulers' chests,
all your endeavors
for Justice are
absurd
absurd
absurd…
Injustice
absurd are your governments
absurd are your parliaments
absurd are your ministries
absurd are your armed forces
when schools and hospitals
become targets of bombardment...
fake are your constitutions
fake are your courts
fake are your lawyers
fake are your judges
when justice turns into a chimera …
useless are your peace conferences
useless are your gatherings
useless are your agreements
useless are your treaties
when human blood is still shed...
vain are your speeches
vain are your TV shows
vain are your tirades
vain are your masquerades
vain is your 'barking'
when tough actions are
forever postponed...
futile is your education
futile is your knowledge
futile is your culture
futile is your civilization
futile is your evolution
when your hearts are frozen...
undeserved are your titles
undeserved are your salaries
undeserved are your statuses
underserved is your wealth
when your souls are dead...
unfair is your existence
unfair are your lives on earth
when Animal Rights are
much more protective &
effective than
Human Rights…
No more violence
Violence has
no color
no religion
no caste
no gender
no race
Violence emanates from
the soulless
the wicked
the rotten
the savage
the cruel
the hostile
the egocentric &
the barbaric,
whose hearts
for mercy and
for the 'Other'
left no place
Violence is the offspring of evil
evil is the rival of good
good and evil are inherent in
the Jewish
the Christian
the Muslim
the Atheist
the Buddhist
and also in the 'chameleons'
with more than one face
Violence gives birth to
hurt
damage
aggression
murder
assassination
annihilation
and entails nothing but
an unerasable trace
Violence should be
repudiated and abated
in each corner of the globe
wherever it slyly sneaks
looking for a permanent
identity and place
So...
Halt to violence !
Halt no bloodshed !
Halt to racism !
Halt to fanaticism !
Halt to terrorism !
Halt to barbarism !
Halt to war!
Let's cure ourselves
from WITHIN and tame this
shameful trait belonging to
the human /inhuman race...
Terrorism
terror …terror … terrorism
who the hell are you ?
who gave you birth ?
who is feeding you?
who is breeding you ?
who is financing you?
when will you drop your mask?
terror… terror… terrorism
who are your unconscious executioners?
the miserable teens?
the hopeless ?
the jobless?
the vagabonds?
the rebels ?
the marginalized?
the ignorant?
the fanatic?
terror … terror … terrorism
to which species do you belong?
to the animal species?
a carnivore?
a predator ?
or a resurrected dinosaur?
terror…terror…terrorism
what the hell is your target ?
slaughtering ?
exploding heads ?
mutilation ?
vandalism ?
highjacking ?
taking hostages ?
kidnapping ?
bombarding ?
massacre ?
trauma?
terror… terror… terrorism
what the hell is your pleasure?
bloodshed
bloodshed
and only
bloodshed ?
terror… terror… terrorism
who are your damned employees ?
robots ?
zombies ?
vampires ?
terror… terror… terrorism
whom are you fooling with
your fake promises of heaven on earth
or in the afterlife?
which religion promises heaven to
ruthless criminals &
heartless murderers of
innocent people &
defenseless kids and women?
terror… terror… terrorism
are you mistaking your atrocities
for unparalleled acts of heroism?
don’t you know that you’re
a stigma of shame for humanity?
that you’re reducing all cultures and
civilizations into mere lies ?
that you’re ridiculizing us before
the honorable Kingdom of Animals ?
don’t you know that that you’re proving
the uselessness of our brains?
the coldness of our hearts?
the extinction of ethics?
the futility of our evolution?
the inhumanity of our human race?
terror…terror… terrorism
you’re nothing but a Curse
dragging us back to barbarism!
Politicians or magicians?
Vote
Vote
Vote for us!
Your wishes are
commands
Your dreams are
our ends
We're not obsessed with
chairs,
each one will get his
share
We don't yearn to be
millionaires,
to heaven, we are your
stairs
We won't strive for
fame,
but for your lives to
frame
We won't enjoy
free beer,
we'll rather dry
your tears
We don't plan for
tomorrow,
but to erase your
sorrow
With us, you'll be in
nirvana,
you'll no longer need
marijuana …
Vote
Vote
Vote for us!
We’ll reduce your working
hours,
give you prerogatives and
power
We’ll better your
conditions,
you'll no longer write
petitions
We’ll ensure justice and
peace &
unemployment
decrease
We’ll give you wings
to fly,
to poverty, wave
good bye!
We’ll even offer you trips to
Nice,
"Suisse"or
"L' île Maurice "
...
Vote
Vote
Vote for us!
We'll whiten your skins,
beautify your faces,
reduce your wrinkles,
straighten your hairs,
help you lose weight,
find spouses for you,
offer you castles,
resurrect your beloved ones;
parents
daughters
or sons
…
Vote
Vote
Vote for us!
Only us, you should trust!
Other parties ignore & disgust!
With us, all your wounds shall be
healed!
We ARE your
D
A
V
I
d
C
O
P
P
E
R
F
I
E
L
d
The stain
Do you know that I exist
but still in the mist…
I’m the cradle of war,
the ocean with
no shore…
The womb of futility,
the nexus of unfair
hostility…
The site of bloodshed,
where people are
underfed…
The territory
of discrimination,
where frustration
reigns…
The locus of fear,
where everybody sheds
tears…
I’m the one whose
houses are demolished,
where colonization is
never abolished…
I’m the one whose
children are slaughtered,
whose seeds
are blood-watered
I’m the combat zone,
where children are orphaned,
yet nothing is
obtained…
I’m the arena
of eternal struggle,
where mothers
can never
snuggle…
I’m the one whose
best weapon is a stone,
while bombs
are breaking our
bones…
I’m the one whose
present is inhaling her past,
whose sovereignty is
trespassed…
I’m the one with
no fixed frontier,
where everything
is unclear…
I’m the one whose
signifier is undefined
while each sign in
language is
signified…
I’m the persecuted land
where buildings turn to
sand…
I’m the land of exhibition
of bombs and gas
emission…
I’m the land of freeze
where heartbeats everyday
cease…
I’m the stain of shame,
for me all hearts all over the world
should have burst into flame
But…
Who’s the one to blame ?
Can you his savageness tame?
Can you his barbarism declaim?
Can you this genocide proclaim?
Can you my freedom reclaim?
Hey, my battle is not a video game!
When shall you exclaim?
I need my borders to frame
give it a final name
this is my sole aim…
all should support my claim…
Do you recognize me now?
I’m the globe mystery
I’m the incarnation of misery
I’m the inconsolable
The incomplete
The dispossessed
The disabled
The exhausted
The amputated
The displaced
The raped
The buried alive
The silenced voice
The lingering pain
The open wound
The betrayed beloved…
In a word I’m Palestine
Let me be your ‘Valentine’!
The World Map
Did I whisper in your ear once
when I melt in your arms
that you are my world map
that I'm a regular traveller
and a fervent explorer
that I won't miss any
of your four corners
will land in all your countries
will explore all your caves
will admire all your landscapes
will cope with all your weathers
will survive your scorching sun
will bear your winter frost
will climb all your mountains
will bathe in all your beaches
will dive in all your seas
will taste all your cuisines...
But...
I apologize now
for breaking my promise
for cancelling my journey
because the modern world
turned me into a mindless
and heartless wanderer
took me away from your
labyrinthian map
kept me busy with
other accessible maps
metamorphosed me
into a restless monkey
jumping from one tree to another
looking for 'food' here and there
roaming aimlessly
hanging out willy-nilly
with a distracted mind
mistaking my east for my west
confusing my north with my south
heading left but not right
spinning around after my 'tail'
instead of exploring the/ my/your world …
Biography
Olfa Drid is an emerging Tunisian poetess.
Her readers have described her as a "towering personality" whose deviation from the trodden path
has made of her something of a "wonder
woman." But as a child Olfa was a mystery whose silence
was generally misunderstood and misinterpreted. Being an introvert, shy and
reserved, she was
fond of
hearing, listening, and observing people around her ... comparing, contrasting,
contemplating, enquiring, meditating, cogitating, philosophizing and
synthesizing.
Olfa, as a teen nicknamed ‘wild beauty,’ was both envied and desired, something that made her infer that beauty is
both a blessing and a curse.
Olfa, the volleyball star, was a polyvalent player and
a fierce fighter; she was a defender and a spiker distinguished mainly
by her strong smashes and high jumps on one hand, and by her perseverance,
determination and fair-play on the other.
Her volleyball talent enabled
her to be a member of the Tunisian national team and gave her the
opportunity to travel and explore the four corners of the globe and ultimately
widen her knowledge, deepen her experience and enrich her vision of life.
Olfa, the schoolgirl, was intelligent, serious, responsible,
hard-working but not talkative in class, hence surprising her teachers more than
once with her unexpected good grades and
high honors at the end of the academic year.
Olfa, the woman is a daydreamer. She is
hypersensitive, romantic, spontaneous, altruistic, philanthropic, caring,
humble, tolerant, self-reliant, perfectionistic and endowed with psychic powers
which enable her to sense people’s hearts and souls.
As for her education and professional career, her studies were
intermittent for enormous reasons. She obtained her university degree in the
English Language and Literature in 1995
and embarked on her teaching career at the
age of 24. In 2004, she resumed her
studies and received her Master degree in Literature in 2005 and now she is a
PhD scholar endeavoring to finish her doctoral dissertation about Toni
Morrison's fiction.
As for her journey with words, Olfa the poet was infatuated with
language and with the power of words to both kill and heal.
In her life spring, she fell in love first with
songs as she used to spend hours listening to music and trying to write
down the lyrics of each song on her own. In a later stage, she was introduced to
a great number of Arab and Persian poets and philosophers such as
Abul
ʿAla Al-Maʿarri, Abu at-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, Omar Khayyam and Rumi. Later on she made the
acquaintance of poets of great renown such as Shakespeare, William Blake, E. E.
Cummings, Maya Angelou, Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Frost, to name but a few.
Being birthed in silence and therefore pregnant with words for decades,
she felt ready finally to unchain her muse
and give birth to words in 2009 when she
started weaving her present and past emotions and thoughts into poems. Some of
her poems were lyrical and rhymed, others were not. Some abide by the classical
rules, other challenge these very rules. Indeed poetry in her eyes is "a realm
where words are unfettered and released from the manacles of definition. "
Poetry is also "the dance floor for rocked and rolled emotions", as she
has defined it. The postmodern
experimental trend in poetry also appealed to her since it gives poets a wide
scope of freedom to showcase their intelligence and creativity in both form and
content. Thus her poems are a mixture of
classicism, romanticism, transcendentalism and postmodernism. Her writing style
is characterized by her extensive use of metaphors and similes as well as
allegories and symbolism. Sarcasm is
one of her rhetorical devices that cannot go by indiscernible to her readers.
Being a hyper-sensitive 'humane' being, her style
of writing is therefore shaped around the heart mode. Her favorite poetic
pattern is the ‘heart-meter’, her verses usually echo the
rhythm of the heart beats...
Being an altruist person in her nature and also in her
writing, she often steps into the shoes of
a rainbow of people and mainly of women in order to voice their emotional
ups and downs and word their thoughts and worries. Olfa is a committed poetess
whose passion is meditation at the ailments and aches of the human race and
whose utmost target of writing is not art for art’s sake but to provoke
thoughts, to question given- for-granted facts and to resurrect the readers’
hearts and uplift their souls. Her poems often shed light on some gender, social
and/or ethical issues. For she finds it daring from a female writer in a
patriarchal society to
query the taboo, to give voice to the unvoiced, to speak the unspeakable, to
personify the abstract and metaphysical, to word the 'unwordable',
and to make readers think of the unthinkable.
Having the strong conviction that self-publishing a book
reflects the power of money and not the power of words, so she believes that
sending one's orphaned poems to compete
with other poets coming from the four corners of the globe is a big
challenge for any writer and the safest and wisest path to gain merit, worldwide
recognition and readership. For being judged in an unbiased and blind way, power
is henceforth given to the WORDS to either spellbind the editors and make them
accept to publish the suggested piece or to cause their repulsion and therefore
decline it.
Olfa started writing and sharing her poems in 2009. She wrote many poems and
shared them with other poets on www.poemhunter.com and www.bookrix.com. The
positive echoes of her difficultly simple poems made her immediately realize the
magnetic power of her pen. Her deep poems proved to shake many hearts and souls,
to bring tears to many eyes and to leave readers wondering and thinking about
her implicit messages. Having her poem ‘Dear daughter’ accepted for publication
in the Poet’s Sanctuary anthology in that same year confirmed her view
and strengthened her belief in the magical power of words. But she stopped
writing for around three years because of pregnancy and other
personal reasons then resumed writing in 2013 when she hugged again her
poetic muse. She has written so far around 60 short poems
between quatrains and haikus and around 50 other longer poems.
2014 seems to be her harvest season. For she had six of her poems published in different reviews such us the Voices Project.org, The Sirens Call ezine, Taj Mahal Review, S/tick Review, The
Haiku Journal, and Three Line poetry journal.
Apart from poetry, she also wrote a play few years ago entitled “Sublime Revenge’
and decided to
self-publish it as an ebook on Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing in 2013.
Olfa Philo is the pen name she chose for herself in order to convey her
different philosophy of life and her perception of things with different eyes
and from a different angle. It also bespeaks her enchantment with the mystical,
the intangible and the metaphysical, which are generally unfathomable by the
human mind.
Since every medal has a reverse and since being multi-gifted implies being
multi-envied, so she could not be exempted from paying the exorbitant price of
these Divine gifts. For these very gifts made her subject to gossip, jealousy,
envy, sexual harassment, molestation, objectification, evil eye and black magic
spells in addition to identity theft and defamatory acts on social networks.
But after being trapped in a dark tunnel for more than a decade, she succeeded
finally to see light through the magically powerful holy verses of God
which filled her heart with calm and serenity and uplifted her tormented soul.
Henceforth, she has sought solace in these powerful words of the Divine
as she found in them the best refuge to both heal and shield oneself from
all evils. Her play 'Sublime Revenge' was in part
inspired by the holy book.
Likewise, being hurt and shocked by the objectifying gaze of people around her
and by their striking blindness to her inner beauty, now she is endeavoring to
prove in and through her poems that beautiful women are NOT stupid and that they
can be smart, creative, inspiring and even icons of wisdom. In a nutshell, one
of her missions as a female author
is to redefine beautiful women as being fit to be poets, thinkers and awakeners
and not only actresses, top models and sales hooks.
So for those who want to visit her realm of white magic spells and
transcend the physical world, you
can join her Facebook page fan below.
Facebook :https://www.facebook.com/pages/Olfa-Philo/1429888267245119?ref=stream
http://www.amazon.com/Sublime-Revenge-Olfa-Philo-ebook/dp/B00FGOKI02/ref=la_B00HOAGRRE_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397072500&sr=1-1
The HyperTexts