Kevin Blankinship

Jun 14, 2024 | newlinesmag.com | Kevin Blankinship

It seems that in ancient Arabia, poetry and murder were never far apart. Think of the 40-year al-Basus War, which kicked off between the fifth-century tribes of Bakr and Taghlib after a stray camel blundered onto the grassy meadows of the tyrant Kulayb ibn Rabiah, who shot and killed the poor beast with an arrow. The camel’s owner, the poet al-Basus bint Munqidh, hounded her nephew al-Jassas for vengeance, which he achieved by driving a shaft into Kulayb’s neck.

Nov 2, 2023 | scholarsarchive.byu.edu | Kevin Blankinship

KeywordsBYU Asian Studies, Valmiki, Hesse, poetryAbstractThe Vedic poet Valmiki could hardly have imagined that, with his discovery of shloka, or poetic meter, and the subsequent advent of literature as a separate aesthetic genre, Hindu notions of reality would lend expression of outrage to war-weary Germans thousands of years later. Or perhaps he did: Brahma’s benediction provided that, “so long as the mountains and rivers . . .

Jul 2, 2023 | newlinesmag.com | Kevin Blankinship

Jun 22, 2023 | newlinesmag.com | Kevin Blankinship