10. On a wall, a lion was sculpted the first animal I loved was cold the second unveiled the incredible depth of the flesh the stone was from the Orient, love, elsewhere. 11. Watch out for the past, a poison for our fields, for these columns which are trees, regardless of spring or winter. 12. There, abroad, centuries-old oaks have heard Napoleon’s steps climbing the Rhone Valley, to fall, … Read more BAALBECK by Etel Adnan (3)
6. The stream of water running under Ariadne’s temple is the thread leading to the Minotaur – before getting lost in the cotton plantations in the airless labyrinth a living mass is crying, day and night the goddess has left him. I bring him olives and wine but the god has aged. Aside from me, only the wind knows the way which links Arabia to Greece, and our thoughts … Read more BAALBECK by Etel Adnan (2)
It is a pleasure & an honor for Nomadics blog to publish BAALBECK, a sequence of poems by Etel Adnan translated by Sarah Riggs over the next 4 or 5 days. Below, the opening sections of the poem & a note by Etel Adnan concerning the circumstances of the work. Last year (2015) there was in Aix en Provence and in Baalbeck itself an event concerning the Baalbeck festival of pre-war Lebanon. … Read more BAALBECK by Etel Adnan
Mahmoud Darwish: photo by Dar Al Hayat, n.d.; image edit by AnomalousNYC, 11 August 2008 Put it on record. ……..I am an Arab And the number of my card is fifty thousand I have eight children And the ninth is due after summer. What’s there to be angry about?Put it on record. I am an Arab Working with comrades of toil in a quarry. I have eight children … Read more Mahmoud Darwish’s “Identity Card” on the Anniversary of his Death
Mohammed Bennis reading at the 38th Moussem — the International Cultural Festival — on the day (July 19) dedicated to his work in Assilah, Morocco.