Literariobics: Review of "Alchemy : Another Name For Love"

Albert V. Nikolla

Tunisian poet Hella Tekali has her own style of writing distinctive poetry, among thousands of other poems. The poetic Queen of Carthage uses the long philosophical style of poetic verse, to present her thoughts, within the structure.

This reminds you of the verse used by the poets of pre-Greek antiquity, such as Homer, Hesiod … But philosophical technique, and modern thought, bring us to post-modern times … This journey through time gives the Poetry of Hela Tekali, a pleasant universality. This kind of poetry cannot be easily left to an ordinary reader, but also predestined for philosophers and thinkers.

“Practiced in Alexandrian Egypt, then in the Arab-Muslim world from the 1st century AD, alchemy was originally a technical-practical discipline, operative, with the aim of transmuting base metals, such as iron and lead… in noble metals, such as gold and silver. According to Mircea Eliade, who devotes several books to him, in particular How I discovered the Philosopher’s Stone, Blacksmiths and Alchemists or The Myth of Alchemy, it would be wrong, however, to reduce alchemical research to a proto-science, emanating from irrational and pre-logical beliefs”. – tells us Grègory Jouanneau-Damance in an article voted in the magazine “Passeurs de Textes”, dedicated to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, 17 Juin 2019.

“In Search Of Alchemy Of Golden Love”

I am a weaver of words, a lover of Alchemy Under your spell, I turn raw metals into refined poetry
I mix gold with silver, then, I melt them down
Both fuse into the mystery of your aesthetic crown.
Her modern poetry is based on “alchemy”, not only of matter, but above all that of the human soul.

The hypnotic concepts of the word find a meaning between value and fusion in the selected phrase … philosophical thought is present. We feel the soul of Avicenna, we feel the power of Saadi’s Sufi poetry, the revolt of Omar Khayyam’s love, and the genesis of a poem that begins with the free spirit of Carthage.

Her poetry is filled with references to the ancient Greeks, to references to scientists who have marked their era. It seems like we want to create that big Carthage library which was burned by the Romans when they conquered and burned this Far Mediterranean city of the ancient Mediterranean. She is not like the ancient queen who committed suicide and sacrificed herself.

But it is like an Artemis seeking to revive the poetry of her country, giving it the proper modernity through Alchemy … It is no coincidence that while the Christian Churches of the Dark Ages burned the ancient Greek writings, Arab scholars and scholars preserved them, to restore to humanity once again the great knowledge of ancient Greece, what was left of the burnt libraries of Carthage and Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great…

In poetry “My Mystical Science”
we encounter this instinctive tendency of the poet … the demand to preserve and judge the great personalities of the world, and their thoughts … judging by the beautiful taste of a poet Hela Tekali takes us to a new dimension .. Nothing in this world is absolute except the Absolute Being: God the Creator.

I am dazzled by the Spirit of Plato
Inspired by the transcendentalism of Emerson
I see myself in the naked thoughts of Rumi
I challenge the cosmic religion of Planck & Einstein.

To understand the essence of why Hela Tekali is a poetic Alchemist we will turn to the great Arab personality, Gibran Khalil Gibran Artiste, écrivain, Peintre, Poète (1883 – 1931) which tells us that “He who, by some alchemy knows how to extract from his heart, to recast them together, compassion, respect, need, patience, regret, surprise and forgiveness creates this atom which is called love”.

We should not talk about romantic lyricism, but about the pure alchemy of a different poem … the essence within the poetic concept is the existence and the futuristic thought.

Another personality of Arabic letters, informs us that, Mofaddel Abderrahim, Surgeon, author of many books , He has expressed his concepts about this topic, which we encounter everywhere in the Poetry of Hela Tekali: « L’alchimie de la vérité est un équilibre des masses : valorisez ceux qui vous donnent autant ».

The Arab world and the European world are two opposing philosophical units, which can not exist without each other … Muslimism can not display the beauty of spiritual strength or have Aesthetic unity with Christianity and vice versa, just as the day can not be a conceptual unity without the existence of the Night, it is opposition in harmony. Just like the sun of Christianity cannot be complete without the moon of slam … This kind of thought is called diversity, and diversity is one of the greatest gifts our world has received since its creation, through Cosmic Alchemy … we encounter this kind of philosophy of thought in the Poetry of Hela Tekali … you just have to have an alchemical spirit to understand such a thing …
Jean-Christophe Rufin Artist, Diplomat, Writer, Doctor, Scientist tells us such a thing in the following sentence ; “The discovery of philosophical truth is realized through the research of the situation, the intertwined reality, the subtext with the meaning of the form of poetry. (“The Way is an alchemy of time on the soul”. Hela Tekali tells us quite beautifully with poetic verses in its volume ” Alchemy”

For the vessel of the heart is its truest vehicle
Chemistry like love lies in the unison of two bodies
The best leitmotif to have recreational telepathies.
Man is tried on earth both for his actions and his deeds
In the judgment day his flower will bloom out of its seeds
Brownian motion and photo electric effect are what he sows
The harvesting of his suffering and sea toiling glows.

Starting from the genesis of the universe, the genesis of our solar system, from the genesis of the living plant and animal world”, acclimation is present, because matter is a substance that knows its evolution through the Alchemical Reaction … and from this alchemy to we have energy .. one of the forms of alchemical energy is the Human Thought itself, which is found in the Human Gene, on the FoxP2 Chromosome … This chromosome makes us write the thought, express it and transmit it between generations .. In other words, it is a gift from God, from nature. Poetry in this case has a precise function, that of the Return of human language to a perfect machine of philosophical feelings. The important role of Alchemy in the creation of the universe in diversity has been wonderfully understood by this Arab poet, who amazes us with her poetry.

I will close this critical article with the saying of Georges Simenon (1903 – 1989), one of the best writers of the twentieth century, who is my favourite:
« Nous sommes un peu comme des éponges qui aspirons la vie sans le savoir et qui la rendons ensuite, transformée, sans connaître le travail d’alchimie qui s’est produit en nous ».
At 00 :21 Brussels, on 01.02.2021,

BIO OF THE REVIEWER

Albert V. Nikolla is a Belgian-Albanian philologist, born on 16 November 1968 in central Albania, Province of Mat. It is simultaneously writer, linguist, literary critic and philosopher.

In 1995, he published his first volume of story entitled: “The last lover”, published by the Ligue des Ecrivains. Following: “The colors of madness”, Stories, Toena-editions, Tirana 1997; “The game of Tulips”, -story, Dita-editions, Tirana-1998, “The depth”, – surrealist novel, the Encyclopaedic-editions in Tirana-1999. “Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Migjeni and the genesis of poetry modern Albanian”, Poems and philosophical essays, editions Globus -R, Tirana 2007, “Golgotha ”, -Roman, ILAR- editions, Tirana 2009. “Kanun”, Roman, ILAR- editions , Tirana-2009, “Dance above the stars”, – Roman, ILAR-editions, – Tirana-2011, “The Genius and the Killers”, Roman, ILAR – editions , Tirana 2011; “The loser of oneself”, Roman, ILAR-editions Tirana 2012, “The Voyage of the Pelicans”: Literary Studies, Hypotheses linguistics – mythologies, ILAR- editions , Tirana 2012 editions: “Love-Explosion”, Poèmes, ILAR-editions Tirana 2013, “The shores of the soul”, -Roman, ILAR-editions, Tirana 2014 , “In the name of love”, Poems, ILAR-editions Tirana 2015
French language publications:

“Chronicle of mafia assassinations”, Roman –The eagle spirit – editions, Brussels 2010, “The banks of the soul”, Roman, editions Edilivre, Paris-2014, “Love-Explosion”, the poetic volume, Harmattan-editions, Paris 2014. (Collection: The Poets of the World.) LE CELTE PRÉHISTORIQUE : GUÈGUE, LA LANGUE–MÈRE DU MONDE “Prehistoric etymology » Volume 1 dhe volume 2” The eagle spirit -Editions, Bruxelles 2020