"Bashshar, and Abu Tammam after him, were leading pioneers in the badi' style. Badi' can be translated as 'new', 'discovered', or 'invented'. In poetry, it refers to the ornate style using rhetorical figures that became fashionable from the beginning of the 'Abbasid period onwards. At the same time a debate began between the qudama (the 'Ancients') and the muhadathun (the 'Moderns') over the merits of this newfangled fancy poetry as against the sort of poetry produced by the Jahili poets and their imitators in the early 'Abbasid period. However, as we shall see, even those who defended the new style in poetry customarily defended it by claiming that it was not really new and by finding ancient precedents for the rhetorical figures favoured by badi' poets."

--Night & Hors*s & th* D*s*rt


"...if I was interested in narrative and tonal variety per se, and I wanted to say something to my culture on any sort of scale, I'd go write for The Sopranos."