Die Leere der Vase

When Novalis once spoke of the fluttering wit of despair, it is an apt description for the poetry of Galal Alahmadi. As a Yemeni who grew up in Saudi Arabia, he has experienced the almost traditional discrimination against his fellow countrymen in the oil-rich yet racist kingdom. In war-torn Yemen, he learned how political violence stifles any free debate. In his flight through the Middle East, he experienced homelessness. And in Germany, where he has lived since 2016, he has faced xenophobic rejection.

It is therefore no surprise that violence, homelessness, and melancholy are reflected in Galal Alahmadi's poems as a lost self. However, his texts always stem from existential experiences such as hopelessness, loneliness, and speechlessness, while making universally valid statements about social, political, and even familial conditions.

His works represent both the aesthetic modernity of the Arab world and the destruction that the prolonged war has inflicted on people. This becomes all the more tangible as Galal Alahmadi approaches the inevitable despair with highly vivid, often ironically fractured metaphors. His love poems also express disorientation, failure, and futility, which is why they are among the most modern lyrical texts from his cultural background.