Khumásiyát

<p><em>Khumásiyát: Poems from the Moroccan Desert </em>is a collection of poems inspired by the traditions of the Ait Khabbash Imazighen (Berbers) of southeastern Morocco and the Saharan landscape they inhabit. Each poem contains the same 125 key words. To compose these poems the poet wrote 125 words on separate slips of paper drew them randomly from a basket and strung together into lines of five key words each sometimes into five-lined stanzas or quintains-hence the name khumásiyát Arabic for a form containing five-to form poems 25 lines long. The familiar words recombine into different groups with different syntax and grammar to form imagistic relationships that are surprising and new. </p>