[News] On Mahmoud Darwish Day, 13 Poems

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://arablit.org/2020/03/13/on-mahmoud-darwish-day-13-poems-2/?fbclid=IwAR2j4WB3qmKNiCYUnIson5XCozVXC1C7q4jD8pG2mTQ9ExBZeIJsPsUIyHU 



  On Mahmoud Darwish Day, 13 Poems

March 13, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/The towering, generation-defining Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish 
(1941-2008) was born on this day in al-Birwa. To commemorate his 
entrance into our world, which happened on a March 13, we have excerpts 
from 13 poems and //poemtexts. Follow the links for more complete works:/

Also, there is apparently no excerpt online from the excellent 
/Palestine as Metaphor, <https://amzn.to/2vBLXdK> /a collection of 
interviews with Darwish translated by Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché; 
read it anyway.

*1) “The Moon Did Not Fall Into the Well 
<http://archipelagobk.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/JournalofanOrdinaryGrief_excerpt.pdf>,” 
from /Journal of an Ordinary Grief <https://amzn.to/2UtEaGo>, /tr. 
Ibrahim Muhawi*

Muhawi’s translations have a wonderful sense of the rhythm of the 
original, and this particular text is and open-hearted narrative with 
deeply etched characters. It opens:

—What are you doing, father?

—I’m searching for my heart, which fell away that night.

—Do you think you’ll find it here?

—Where else am I going to find it? I bend to the ground and pick it up 
piece by piece just as the women of the fellahin pick up olives in 
October, one olive at a time.

—But you’re picking up pebbles!

—Doing that is a good exercise for memory and perception. Who knows? 
Maybe these pebbles are petrified pieces of my heart.

*2) “Love, like meaning, <https://pen.org/in-the-presence-of-absence/>” 
from /In the Presence of Absence <https://amzn.to/2VHtync>, /tr. Sinan 
Antoon.*

Perhaps the greatest of Darwish’s works, this version brought Antoon the 
2012 National Translation Award 
<https://arablit.org/2012/10/07/antoon-wins-2012-national-translation-award-for-in-the-presence-of-absence/>:

Love, like meaning, is out on the open road, but like poetry, it is 
difficult. It requires talent, endurance, and skillful formulation, 
because of its many stations. It is not enough to love, for that is one 
of nature’s magical acts, like rainfall and thunder. It takes you out of 
yourself into the other’s orbit and then you have to fend for yourself. 
It is not enough to love, you have to know how to love. Do you know how?

*3)* *“The Dice Player 
<http://www.vqronline.org/vqr-symposium/dice-player>,” from /If I Were 
Another: Poems <https://amzn.to/2XI6mas>, /tr. Fady Joudah*

The charming “The Dice Player” with a visual adaptation:

*4) “The Horse Fell off the Poem 
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52550/the-horse-fell-off-the-poem>,” 
from /The Butterfly’s Burden <https://amzn.to/2Hkqiua>, /tr. Fady Joudah*

There is no margin in modern language left

to celebrate what we love,

because all that will be … was

*5) “The Second Olive Tree 
<https://arablit.org/2016/03/13/on-mahmoud-darwishs-birthday-a-new-translation-of-the-second-olive-tree/>,” 
tr. Marilyn Hacker*

And with horses, olive trees:

The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive tree
Is the hillside’s modest lady. Shadow
Covers her one leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the 
storm.
Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.

*6) “Nothing But Iraq 
<https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/nothing-but-iraq-march-29-2003>,” 
tr. *Shareah Taleghani**

A cry to Badr Shakir al-Sayyab:

I remember as-Sayyab screaming into the Gulf in vain:
Iraq, Iraq. Nothing but Iraq.
And nothing but an echo replies
I remember as-Sayyab, in that Sumerian space
A woman triumphed over the sterility of mist
She bequeathed to us earth and exile . . .
For poetry is born in Iraq,
So be Iraqi to become a poet, my friend.

*6) A second translation, titled “I Remember al-Sayyab,” 
<https://talinedv.com/2010/08/07/mahmoud-darwish-i-remember-al-sayyab/> 
by Taline Voskeritchian and Christopher Millis*

I remember al-Sayyab, his futile cries across the Gulf:

‘Iraq, Iraq, nothing but Iraq,’

And nothing answers but an echo.

I remember al-Sayyab under these same Sumerian skies

Where a woman surmounted the void

To make us heirs to earth and exile.

*7) “And where is my will? 
<http://xpoetics.blogspot.com/2010/06/from-memory-for-forgetfulness-dhakira.html>” 
from /Memory for Forgetfulness <https://amzn.to/2tUBPso>, /tr. Ibrahim 
Muhawi*

And where is my will?

It stopped over there, on the other side of the collective voice. But 
now, I want nothing more than the aroma of coffee. Now I feel shame. I 
feel shamed by my fear, and by those defending the scent of the distant 
homeland–that fragrance they’ve never smelled because they weren’t born 
on her soil. She bore them, but they were born away from her. Yet they 
studied her constantly, without fatigue or boredom; and from 
overpowering memory and constant pursuit, they learned what it means to 
belong to her.

“You’re aliens here,” they say to them /there/.

“You’re aliens here,” they say to them /here/.

*8) “Standing Before the Ruins of Al-Birweh 
<http://jadaliyya.com/Details/23789>,” tr. Sinan Antoon, from /I Don’t 
Want This Poem to End/ <https://amzn.to/2XMH7Ua>*

Like birds, I tread lightly on the earth’s skin

so as not to wake the dead

I shut the door to my emotions to become my other

I don’t feel that I am a stone sighing

as it longs for a cloud

*9) “The Tragedy of Narcissus 
<https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/the-tragedy-of-narcissus-the-comedy-of-silver>,” 
from /If I Were Another <https://amzn.to/2VKzk7U>, /tr. Fady Joudah:*

*10) “A Noun Sentence 
<https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/noun-sentence>,” tr. Fady Joudah*

A noun sentence, no verb
to it or in it: to the sea the scent of the bed
after making love … a salty perfume
or a sour one. A noun sentence: my wounded joy
like the sunset at your strange windows.

*11) “If I Were a Hunter 
<https://arablit.org/2016/03/13/on-mahmoud-darwishs-birthday-a-new-translation-of-if-i-were-a-hunter/>,” 
tr. Shakir Mustafa*

If a hunter I were
I’d give the gazelle
a chance, and another,
and a third, and a tenth,
to doze a little. My share
of the booty would be
peace of mind under
her dozing head.

*12) “Here They Are Words 
<https://www.poetrynw.org/mahmoud-darwish-here-they-are-the-words/>” tr. 
Fady Joudah*

Here they are the words fluttering in the mind
There’s a land in the mind with a heavenly name the words carry.

*13) “ID Card <http://www.barghouti.com/poets/darwish/bitaqa.asp>,” 
tr. Salman Masalha and Vivian Eden*

This would not likely be a poem Darwish would choose among only 13 of 
his works. But it is one that, although written in his early days, in 
1964, continues to have great political resonance:

Write it down! I’m an Arab
My card number is 50000
My children number eight
And after this summer, a ninth on his way.
Does this make you rage?
I am an Arab.

Also, as a bonus: Here the Birds’ Journey Ends 
<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/08/25/here-the-birds-journey-ends>, 
tr. Joudah

-- 
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