Cultural Origins & Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī

I used poetry by Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī for my choral work The Necessity of what is Unnecessary. I wrote this blog post for NYU Press' Library of Arabic Literature blog about the work: ​http://www.libraryofarabicliterature.org/2017/on-finding-music-in-al-ma%CA%BFarris-poetry/