Jeryes Samawi: Jordanian Cultural Icon Like No Other

By Ruba Hattar

First time I met Jeryes Samawai was in his office when he was minister of culture in Jordan. He was welcoming and courteous and gifted me a signed copy of his published poetry collection "Another Slip of Wisdom" which I still have.

Samawi was born in 1956 in Amman, and studied until middle school in Fuheis, and finished high school at Sweileh Secondary School for Boys in 1976, then he studied the art of media communication in New York, USA. He obtained a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Jordan In 1988. 

Samawi worked for Jordan TV, preparing and presenting of a number of cultural programs on the Arabic and English channels, then as deputy director of the Jerash Festival for Culture and Arts from 1997-2001, and later as the general director of the festival from 2001-2006.

He was appointed Secretary-General of the Ministry of Culture, and took over the Ministry of Culture in 2011. Samawi won the first prize for the best Arabic poem on the Palestinian uprising from the Jordanian Popular Committee to Support the Intifada in 1987 (in partnership with Habib Al-Zeyoudi and Ali Al-Fazaa).

He published his poetry collection entitled "Another Slip of Wisdom" by the Arab Foundation for Studies and Publishing in Beirut in 2004. His poems have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian, Roman and Turkish. Samawi was gifted in drawing and wrote a number of musicals, and poems in English in addition to Arabic.

Fast forward, I was organizing a book/ conversation club for youth in east Amman, Madaba and Irbid in collaboration with The Princess Basma Youth Centers; and the young men and women in the clubs asked me to reach out to special guest speakers by name whom they found most inspiring. Some said no and some were so wonderful and down to earth and accepted the invitation very graciously.

Among those very special people were writer Ayaman Otoum, composer Tareq Al Nasser and our beloved poet Jeryes Samawi. The talks and conversations were most interactive and inspiring for these enthusiastic youth.

Later , I asked him to be part of a special poetry session for students at the American Language Center, where an American language teacher , myself and Jeryes talked to the students on simple techniques to start writing poems. He read some of his poems and talked about themes that inspired him and his latest project of writing between Spain and Jordan at the time. I was encouraged to read one of my humble poems which he actually liked.

Last time my friends and I saw him and had a nice conversation with him was when he was master of ceremony presenting the great Lebanese poet Talal Haider at the Shoman Foundation.

An evening that touched everyone who attended; not only for the poems of Talal Haider sung by Fairuz and Marcel Khalife and well engraved in our hearts, minds and cultural conscious but also for the eloquence and elegance in which Jeryes has framed and contextualized the evening and order of poems and conversation with Haider. A gift which he had given to the Jordanian cultural scene for decades like no one else can.

His great insights and knowledge of what each place and word signified and how to project that were unparalleled and could equal numerus cultural preservation projects put together. 

Yesterday, brought the sad news of his loss due to Coronavirus. As many artists, intellectuals, cultural, political and media figures from Jordan and the region, let alone friends and people he supported, inspired and worked with expressed their deep sorrow for his loss, a wave of sadness and disbelief as well as scattered tears took hold of all those who knew him.

As if we all refuse to accept that he is physically gone like many beautiful icons you come to encounter in life and take for granted that they should always be there and in way they remain alive for you just in different forms.