Poetry Night at Firaus Towers

When my flatmates invited me to poetry night at Firaus Towers three weeks ago I imagined wizened Syrian poets sitting around a café reading Qabbani and discussing the decline of the arts in Damascus. Instead poetry night is a raucous affair held in a retro jazz bar in the basement of Firaus Towers. The smoke-filled bar is packed to the gills with the Damascene art scene. It’s open mike night, which accounts for the uneven recitations – some passionate, some barely tolerable, all mostly incomprehensible to me given my very basic understanding of Arabic. I get the gist of the poems – love lost, unrequited love, first love – you get the idea. I can often tell when a poem is bad – conversations start up and the proprietor begins to hush the crowd in Arabic, English and French. He’s a bit of a character himself, often reads a few poems throughout the night, and is often blitzed by the end of the evening. It’s a regular crowd at poetry night and it’s impossible to not make friends and get a few numbers after a few visits.

One night a young Syrian girl read her own work in English – a poem about the oppressive nature of religion and the value of human rights. The Arabic translation resulted in a chorus of “Allah” from some members of the audience. Perhaps even the young, modern Syrians of today are not ready to publicly forsake their religion. Surprisingly, however, there is a high number of Syrians who have, in private, professed a break with their faith to me. One man, a plastic surgeon, who is planning to move to Canada, expressed frustration with the complete and total rule of religion over society. As an outsider I’m not really privy to the inner workings of Syrian society but I have been afforded some glimpses. Christians and Muslims are not allowed to marry – one member of the couple, generally the woman, must convert. While converting to Islam is relatively easy, converting to Christianity is more problematic. One of my Syrian friends, T, told me that if she converted to Christianity her “blood would be like water,” meaning, if she was killed, it would be no more important than spilling water on the street and no one would bother to prosecute her killer on her behalf. Sometimes it is more pleasant to live in the happy tourist bubble than delve into the darker parts of Syrian society.

The best part of poetry night is the Iraqi singer from Baghdad who comes on after the poetry. Once the crowd notices him in the audience the chanting begins: “Dury, Dury, Dury!” Dury sings classical Arabic songs in a low, beautiful voice. My last poetry night he told me he wouldn’t be performing anymore due to a falling out with the manager. I talked him into coming to our house to sing at a private party. While Dury is a bit of player, and has a penchant for flirting with young pretty girls, you can forgive him any transgression once he starts to sing. He downed arak after arak (a white, milky local Syrian drink similar to raki or ouzo) and then enchanted us all. Poetry night ends around 1 AM which is a perfect time to hop in a car and drive to the top of the mountain that dominates the Damascus skyline. From the city, it looks like barren hilltop. I had been told that the view from the top was amazing. So when offered a ride to the top for some “beer and dancing” I took up the offer.

Next thing I knew, I was in a car with my Australian roommate, a Turkish guy I met the day before, and two Syrian blokes with Arabic music blaring headed up the side of a mountain careening through traffic. M, who drove like a twitchy speed addict, was popping in the front seat and demonstrated some pretty amazing dance moves considering A) it’s Syria, and B) he was navigating some hellacious traffic at the same time. I was slightly concerned about the police until his friend told me that M’s father is a judge and no traffic cop would dare give him a ticket. In Syria, as everywhere, it pays to have connections. We got to the top and pulled over to the side of the road, opened the beers we bought at the corner store, and I realized that we were about to engage in the Syrian version of parking.

The basic idea is simple. Park your car based on the music blaring from the adjacent cars, step onto the rocky precipice, and start a dance party. Syrian couples who probably can’t find privacy anywhere else, young guys who can’t afford the entrance at a club, and crazy curious people like me all seem to make it up to the side of the mountain on a Monday night to rock out. After we had enough of the music we first encountered we drove to the next spot and M spun us some Arabic dance tunes while he did back flips in the middle of the road. It turns out M is also a TV actor and I wondered what his highly connected father thinks of his career aspirations and late-night shenanigans. I broke out some circa 1999 dance moves circa that the boys had never seen (and that I have long abandoned) and we risked life and limb in the middle of the road until 4 AM. My last night in Damascus I went to a proper club that played cheesy dance tunes like “Umbrella” and “4 Minutes” – but for a truly Syrian experience nothing compares to the nightly impromptu dance parties at the top of Jebel Qassioun.