1 Amarg

Amarg is sometimes used to refer to poetry in general and sometimes to love poetry. Most often, however, it stands for poetry whose authors are known. The most prominent tachelhit authors of amarg are undoubtedly, Sidi Hamou Ettaleb (1706-1789) and Mririda n'ait Attiq (c.1900 - c.1940s).

1.2: Hamou Ettaleb

Famously known as babn'umarg, “the poetry master,” Sidi Hamou Ettaleb was one of the most celebrated Tachelhit poets. Little is known about him except that he was a beloved itinerant poet and singer who was versed in the Koran, hadith, and Islamic jurisprudence. He composed poems about the whole range of human experience: love, marriage, virtues and vices, friendship, family, money, society, politics, morality, reason, and happiness. He also wrote about the afterlife. His poems are characterized by precise imagery; they are also concise and to the point. Here are four of his most gripping and powerful compositions:

In the first, the speaker is so infatuated with his beloved's beauty that he thinks her birth can only be the result of heavenly intervention; some saint must have interceded with God on behalf of her parents:

In the second poem, he describes the pain of not knowing if one's love for someone is reciprocal or not:

The third is a not-so-veiled critique of the powers that be:

Finally in the following poem the speaker expresses his anguish that he may die without expressing in words and in deeds his gratitude to those who aided him in times of dire need:

1.3: Mririda n'ait Attiq

Tachelhit's other grand bard, Mririda n'ait Attiq (c.1900 – c.1940s), was a poet of a character quite different from that of Ettaleb. Her poetry is wounded and intensely personal; she composed a great deal about the hardships she suffered throughout her life, her disappointments, and her unfulfilled love as is shown in the following:

Mririda also faced up to the hard facts of life: injustice, inequality, poverty, and women's deplorable condition. Moreover, she was not afraid to denounce loud and clear the rich and the local rulers who sometimes abused their authority and power to intimidate and treat people in a harsh and dishonorable manner:

Still, despite the sorrow she carried in her heart, Mririda had her stoic side and saw her misfortunes and those of the poor and underprivileged as part of the larger workings of fate as she expresses in the following:

While maintaining that everything that happens is predestined, Mririda, nevertheless, ends her poem with the expression of her conviction that a person's destiny is a part of God's design and may serve some greater purpose in ways humans cannot understand:

2 Tihwachin

While the previous genres of poetry are composed by professional poets, tihwachin (sg. tahwacht), another major type of Tachelhit poetry, is also popular and is synonymous with song. Tihwachin are generally brief, and they begin without introduction or exposition. They are sometimes tercets but most of the time couplets repeated over and over in a fast rhythm when sung. Two typical illustrations of tahwacht are the following that warn against the danger of pride and arrogance:

And:

In addition to the danger of pride and arrogance, tihwachin often deal with the ephemeral quality of life and humanity's inevitable doom:

3 Aqsid

Another prominent Tachalhit poetic genre is aqsid (pl. iqsiden). It is the equivalent of Central Moroccan Tamazight's tamedyazt and Takbaylit's asefrou (pl. isefra); it is the domain of seasoned poets. While tihwachin are often composed in a lyric style in the shape of brief songs and love poems, aqsid is a demanding form of poetry that tackles reflective themes and uses stricter structures. It is characterized by a slow rhythm and complex language and imagery. A poem in which these qualities merge is the following in which the poet grieves over his being away from home. Consumed with guilt and remorse, he asks the land of his birth for forgiveness:

4 Lqist

From Arabic qissa (story), lqist refers to narrative poetry in Tachlhit. There are lqisatin (pl.) on themes as varied as fables, adventures, and the lives of the prophets Mohamed, Abraham, Moses, and Joseph, describing their birth, growth, exploits, or death. Lqist adventures are based on real people but are partly fictional. A famous example of lqist is the story of Yemna Mansour:

1 Izli

Poetry in Central Moroccan Tamazight is marked by a couplet called izli (pl. izlan) of about fifteen syllables. Other genres no less important include tamawayt (pl. timawayin), ahllel (pl. ahllilen), and tamedyazt (pl. timedyazin). The two lines of izlan are composed of two hemistiches each and include internal, or external rhymes, or both. Izlan are the basic form of poetry in Central Moroccan Tamazight; they enter into the composition of all the other forms.Footnote ¹⁶ They combine visual images with strong yet subtle meanings as is clear from the following anonymous poems:

Even though love and loss are the main motives of izli composers, they did not turn their backs on the tragic events taking place around them. The following poem expresses vividly the deep sorrow and affliction a poet feels about the suffering of his people after they were defeated by the enemy:

Still, the Imazighen remain defiant:

In addition to love and protest izlan, such as the above, there are occupational izlan to accompany harvesting, fulling, sheep shearing, etc.; lullaby izlan; izlan for rogatory prayers; as well as izlan for weddings and other celebrations.Footnote ²³ Izlan are also performed in festivals called ihidousen (sg. ahidous) in which, standing elbow to elbow, men and women swing back and forth rhythmically, repeating the same poem again and again, accompanied by the sound of drums called bendir.

2 Tamawayt

Tamawayt (pl. timawayin), literally “the one that is carried along” or “that keeps company” is formally equivalent to izli; both are short and fairly simple in construction. Timawayin are cries from the heart; they are laments and distress calls of people who feel lonely to ease their pain.Footnote ²⁴ They are usually sung in a high-pitched voice. Below are examples of tamawayt:

3 Tamedyazt

Tamedyazt (pl. timedyazin), sometimes called tanshat or tayfat stands for poetry composed and performed by professional poets called imedyazen. It is often moralistic. Timedyazin are longer than izlan and are usually responses to current events and daily life hassles. To become an amedyaz is a difficult and lengthy process.Footnote ²⁸ Imedyazen are the conscience of their communities: they relay information from one area to another and serve as educators and social critics.Footnote ²⁹ In addition to love, and life's joys and sorrows, the themes that especially concern them are injustice, corruption, emigration, unemployment, the erosion of tradition, and the decline of morality.Footnote ³⁰ Their critiques are often acerbic. Timedyazin always start with an invocation such as the following:

Below is a tamedyazt about love:

And here is a tamedyazt in which the poet comments on current political events:

3.1 Taougrart

Taougrat Oult Aissa stood above all the other imedyazen in imaginative power, emotional range, and courage. Her independent spirit, talent, and anti-colonialist stance made her the bête noire of the French authorities as well as the Makhzen (the monarchical military and political apparatus of Morocco) and excited the envy of many who spread malicious gossip about her.

In the following poem, she describes the brutality Moroccans suffered in the early twentieth century at the hands of invading Spaniards and French. She chastises those among her countrymen who shrug with indifference at the human misery around them and the terrible events that shake the world:

She also exposes the sinister role played by those who bowed to the enemy:

As well as the obsequious people whose conversations revolved around the rulers:

To shame the men who would not stand up to the enemy, the poet urges women to fight for national liberation and independence despite their inability to combat forces that are much more powerful:

And vows to keep fighting:

Throughout, her poetry highlights themes of courage, integrity, and pride, despite adversity:

Of particular poignancy is the poem where Taougrat felt humiliated to the depth of her being and stripped of dignity at seeing her countrymen drawn to the enemy by abject poverty and misery. She cries out:

1 Asefrou

In Takbaylit, asefrou (sg.isefra) is used to refer to poetry in general. It also refers to a particular well-structured form made of three stanzas of three lines each, according to the following pattern:

Second stanza:

Third stanza:

Some traditional isefra are meant to entertain but most are didactic. Indeed, poets were seen less as creators than as the repositories of shared wisdom. Their function was to keep tradition alive and make explicit and clear what is already known by everyone but in an incomplete, fragmented, and often in a confused manner. To compose poetry, sefrou, means to untangle, to explain difficult situations and, ultimately, to clarify.

In addition to their social functions and contents, oral poems in Takbaylit differ in their methods of delivery: didactic poems, often of anonymous origins, used to be recited by professionals who travelled from village to village and market to market. They were called imaddahen in opposition to ifsihen who were fewer and who were capable of both reciting and composing poems. Imaddahen – who no longer exist – enjoyed a prominent and respectable position in society: they participated in assemblies and were consulted on difficult situations.

The most outstanding masters of age-old Takbaylit poetic art are Cheikh Mohand ou Lhocine (1836-1901), Mhand ou Mhand (1848-1905) and Lbachir Amellah (1861-1930), whose immortal poems are characterized by the depth of content and great technical perfections. Of all the Takbaylit-speaking poets, however, none has displayed more mastery of asefrou than Ou Mhand and Amellah. Here is one of Ou Mhand's most celebrated isefra:

Besides isfra, there are three other types of poems in Takbaylit: devotional poems called adhekker and tiqsidin, love poems called izlan, and other secular poems. Each type has its own form. Nevertheless, there are devotional isefra, love isfra, as well as isfra about other topics such as war and emigration; what makes an asfrou is its form rather than its content.

A good example of a devotional asefrou is the following:

Here is a love asefrou:

Finally here is an asfru denouncing the brutality of the colonial power and its nefarious consequences:

2 Adhekker

As is clear from the above, a major characteristic of oral poetry in Takbaylit is its religiosity, even when it is not primarily devotional. There are, however, poems in Takbaylit that are specifically religious. Religious poems in Takbaylit are of three kinds: devotional and mystical poems (adhekker), hagiographic poems honoring and paying tribute to saints, and prophetic poems (tiqsidin) based on the lives of Mohamed, Abraham, Moses, and Joseph, describing their birth, growth, exploits, or death. Adhekker refers to both a ritual and the religious and mystical poems that accompany it and often includes tiksidin. While hagiographic and prophetic poems are recited by imaddahen, devotional and mystical poems are sung mainly by members of religious brotherhoods called lakhouan and also by choirs of laymen and women during funerals and on the occasion of pilgrimages to shrines of saints called lawliya. Sometimes adhekker consists in of short lines invoking God and the Day of Judgment, repeated in chorus and punctuated by the repetition of the name of God; some other times it consists mainly in the praise of the Prophet and the invocation of his aid, protection, and blessing as in the following:

Another representative devotional poem is the following:

3 Izli

Unlike isefra, izlan (sg. izli), another prominent type of poetry in Takbaylit, do not follow strict conventions of form and style as seen above. They are love songs performed by women in the presence of exclusively feminine audiences, often at parties called ourar. Due to their intimate nature, izlan rarely find their way to the public space.

Here are two powerful izlan where the speakers grieve over their loneliness suggested by “island” and “high hill” and give vent to their deep longing for love:

4 Other secular poems

Other secular poems in Takbaylit often accompany celebrations of births and weddings and chores like plowing, picking olives, and harvesting during which God is also invoked. To the category of secular poems also belong satirical poems meant to criticize or disgrace an individual or a group; elocutionary poems, not principally concerned with conveying messages as much as with displaying a poet's artistic prowess; and finally epic poems praising the feats of warriors, relating the wars between villages, and singing the glory and the misfortunes of the country. The poem “Tuksaa n Lzayer” (The Conquest of Algiers) by Al Hadj Ammar ou al Hadj about the fall of Algiers on July 5, 1830, and its disastrous consequences for Algerians is one of the most representative examples of epic poetry in Takbaylit. Here is an excerpt from it:

1 Izri

Izri (pl. izran) is the longest enduring and most popular form of poetry in the Rif region. Izran are made up of two lines. Each of them is around twelve syllables long, although some have only nine and others as many as twelve. The theme of izran is often love, the joys and torments of which are expressed in frank and powerful language as the following poems show:

Women often say izran to express in a subtle way their love and grief and, on occasion, to dissuade young men who already successfully asked for their hands from going ahead with the wedding. The speaker of the following poem finds the perfect words to discourage a suitor who already has the blessing of her father:

It used to be the custom in the Rif region for young men to present the fathers of the girls they want to marry with a number of loaves of sugar when they ask for their hands. If the father breaks one of the loaves to make tea; that means he accepts the young man as his future son-in-law; if he politely returns the sugar or uses his own, that means he does not.Footnote ⁵⁷

2 Epic Rifan poems

From 1921 to 1926 the Rifans fought the occupying Spaniards (joined by the French in 1924). They wrote many poems – made of izran – about the battles of Tazagzawt, Badou, and Boughafer, as well as about the leaders of the resistance such as Bouhmara (Jilali ben Driss al-Youssefi al-Zerhouni, 1860-1909) and Mohamed Cherif Ameziane (1859-1912). Below is an excerpt from one such poem in honor of the latter:

However, the Rifan epic that is still recited and read today, undoubtedly the most famous, is Dar UbarranFootnote ⁵⁹, which praises Mohamed ben Abdelkrim El Khattabi (1882-1963). The victorious hero of several battles against the Spaniards and the French, El Khattabi symbolizes the Moroccan struggle against European imperialism and his exploits stirred the patriotic spirit of many Maghrebis. They also earned him the respect and admiration of revolutionary leaders all over the world, notably Mao Zedong and Che Guevara who applied his guerilla techniques in the field.Footnote ⁶⁰ There is no single author of Dar Ubarran, nor is there any standard version of it. Professional poets known as imedyazen have adapted it to fit different audiences and circumstances. Here are few lines from it: