Blue Expanse

Preface In undertaking the translation of the poems included in The Blue Expanse, my main objective was to introduce Anwar Salman, a Lebanese renowned poet, to the English-speaking readers. Salman’s poetic career started in 1956, when the young poet, still a high school student, won Maroun Aboud Prize for Poetry; and it came to an end in an unfortunate car accident on April 20, 2016. During these six decades, Salman’s poetry was read with passion by so many Arab poetry enthusiasts in Lebanon and other Arab countries. Moreover, many of his poems were set to melody and sung by famous Arab singers, and some of these poems won prestigious prizes in major Arab song festivals. For many critics Salman is one of the best Arab lyric modern poets. Lyricism of course is not a literary movement. Rather, it is a broad term that can be applied to a spectrum of creative arts, including, music, painting, dance, film, and even architecture. In poetry, in particular, the term lyricism has been widely used to describe poetry belonging to different literary ages and different regions, as well as diverse poetry schools.