Sharif Al Maghraby
Paper Forest is not poetry.
Paper Forest is not prose.
It began as a creative outlet for a child.
It was simply a way of expressing curiosity, anger, guilt, desire, love and faith.
It became a way of dealing with all emotions.
At nineteen I stopped writing, and started making music.
For
ten years, the Paper Forest lay in the dusty bottom of some creased
box. It lay there, a frenzy of ideas, emotions, advice, needs and
prayers.
It was finally time to complete it.
Ten years later, I am proud if this achievement.
I am genuinely interested in what people feel when they read Paper Forest.
And I know the artists will understand.
There is a piece called ‘Words; wonderful wizards of wisdom.’
A critic may say that that (J) is alliteration.
I say that that is what came to mind at the time.
Parts of Paper Forest address a search and a fear.
Others are dark and border on the insane.
Others are hopeful and pray for a way to ‘distance these rainy days’.
Others are conscious of the act of writing and become detached by being aware.
The
real art is allowing the mind to roam, to fill in the blanks, to try to
make sense of every word, to question, to try to understand.
If there is one thing to understand it is this :
‘On
this quest for objectivity, I become everyone and on this quest for
equal truth I am no-one. Therefore, my Paper Forest is free.’
Paper forest can be read in any order and since it is interactive, it is also non-linear.
Sharif Al Maghraby was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1974.
He spent most of his child years playing with Lego, hunting all sorts of things from squid to grasshoppers, break dancing, doing stunts on BMXs and playing Zork on an Apple iic.
He went to University at 15 and changed his major 7 times until he ended up with a BA in Communication and a minor in Psychology.
He began writing at the age of 12 and remembers passing little Valentine's notes to girls in class and his friends coming to him for advice about what to write to win back their loved ones.
His first short story, now lost in the drawer of some school desk, was well received by his creative writing class.
He has worked extensively in all aspect of Communication. Media and Marketing and is the first Egyptian to be awarded the Certificate of Excellence in New Media Studies from Vancouver Film School in 1999.
An avid guitarist with interests in all forms of music, he is currently working on a concept album that combines elements of rock, blues and oriental instrumentation.
He is also planning to write, produce and direct a documentary about the nature of good and evil.
He is interested in just about everything which makes life quite wonderful albeit a little intense.
He currently resides in Dubai.
The Sign
Like the timid tattoo,
afraid to show its true colours,
a wound skin deep,
feeling the pain.
Like the breaking waves,
reaching the end of marine motion,
born in blue.
Like the forgotten rhyme,
silent, strong
and somewhere in the sinner's bowl.
Like the cracking cradles,
rocking and breaking,
a baby quake that moves the stones
Like the stranger's name,
hiding in social norms,
creased, folded,
and tucked away.
