{"id":14844,"date":"2016-07-28T08:49:03","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T12:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=14844"},"modified":"2016-07-28T01:52:22","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T05:52:22","slug":"for-july-28-not-forgetting-ashraf-fayadh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/for-july-28-not-forgetting-ashraf-fayadh\/","title":{"rendered":"For July 28: Not Forgetting Ashraf\u00a0Fayadh"},"content":{"rendered":"

via Arab Lit (in English) & BY MLYNXQUALEY<\/a><\/span><\/span> on<\/em> 0<\/a> )<\/span><\/p>\n

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Today is a Day of Creativity<\/a> for Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, serving eight years and 800 lashes in Saudi Arabia for the alleged apostasy in his collection\u00a0<\/em>Instructions Within:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"13681035_10157159130015317_108152580209665422_n\"<\/p>\n

Graffiti for Ashraf in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI am scared to be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian <\/em>translated this message from the Palestinian poet, artist, and curator Ashraf Fayadh, sitting in prison in Abha, Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

It was a message conceived on one of the cold days in prison. It was relayed to a friend, who relayed it to a journalist. It further went through editors, subeditors. And finally appeared on the page.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am fearful of being forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know Ashraf Fayadh. Or I know him, intimately, because I\u2019ve read his poetry, struggled over the some of the lines, grown quiet over others, been outraged and felt my heart torn by still others. I\u2019ve gone back, read the lines aloud to others, puzzled over individual words, asked others what they saw when they heard them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been almost three years since Ashraf was first detained by police.<\/p>\n

At first, when he fell afoul of religious police in August 2013, it was after a disagreement in a caf\u00e9. Maybe it didn\u2019t seem like anything. It would all be worked out. He wasn\u2019t an artist with some international standing; he\u2019d represented Saudi at the Venice Biennale earlier in the year. And the poems in his collection Instructions Within <\/em>weren\u2019t a criticism of religion. They were about being a stateless refugee who\u2019s surrounded by belonging and yet cut off from it. They\u2019re about corruption, oil, ownership, and poverty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is among the coldest, bitterest fears.<\/p>\n

This disappearance inside a prison cell while life goes forward with you. Everything in the world outside is chattering, changing, blossoming and decaying while you are held apart, on a different planet. Your friends find other friends, your family moves on, your enemies find other people to shout at. When you come out, no one can remember lines from your poems, and no one remembers that you\u2019d ever existed.<\/p>\n

So we will pinch the insides of our palms. We will say your poetry. We remember.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m frightened. Don\u2019t forget me.\u201d<\/p>\n

More poetry will be appearing throughout the day.<\/em><\/p>\n

Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in English:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in English:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, from Instructions Within<\/em>:\u00a0\u2018The Last of the Line of Refugee Descendants\u2019<\/a>, translated by Jonathan Wright<\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, from\u00a0Instructions Within: <\/em>\u2018A Melancholy Made of Dough,\u2019<\/a>\u00a0translated by\u00a0Tariq Alhaydar<\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh,\u00a0from\u00a0Instructions Within:\u00a0<\/em>Four Short Poems<\/a>, translated by Jonathan Wright<\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, from\u00a0Instructions Within:\u00a0<\/em>\u201cA Space in the Void<\/a>,\u201d translated by Jonathan Wright<\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, from\u00a0Instructions Within:\u00a0<\/em>\u201cOn the Virtues of Oil over Blood<\/a>\u201d\u00a0translated by\u00a0Mona Zaki<\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, from\u00a0Instructions Within:\u00a0<\/em>\u201cThe Name of a Masculine Dream<\/a>\u201d translated by\u00a0Mona Zaki<\/p>\n

Inspired by Ashraf Fayadh<\/strong><\/p>\n

Youssef Rakha, uncollected: \u2018Listen Ashraf<\/a>,\u2019 translated by Robin Moger<\/p>\n

Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in French<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, from Instructions de l\u2019int\u00e9rieur: \u201c<\/em>Les Moustaches de Frida Kalo\u2019 and Other Poems<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0\u00a9Traduction Tahar BEKRI<\/p>\n

Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in Spanish<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ashraf Fayadh, from Las instrucciones est\u00e1n adentro, \u201c<\/i>Los \u00faltimos descendientes de los Refugiados<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0<\/i>Del \u00e1rabe al espa\u00f1ol: Shadi Rohana y Lawrence Schimel<\/p>\n

Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in Finnish<\/strong><\/p>\n

A\u0161raf Fayyad, from Instructions Within,\u00a0<\/em>\u201cPakolaisten Viimeinen J\u00e4lkel\u00e4inen<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0suomennos: Sampsa Peltonen<\/p>\n

Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in Turkish<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Turkish Translation, E\u015fref Feyy\u00e2d\u2019s \u2018Hikmet\u2019 and Other Poems<\/a><\/p>\n

Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in Nepali<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018A Space in the Void\u2019 and Other Poems by Ashraf Fayadh in\u00a0Nepali<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

via Arab Lit (in English) & BY MLYNXQUALEY on JULY 28, 2016 \u2022 ( 0 ) Today is a Day of Creativity for Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, serving eight years and 800 lashes in...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,52,1442,830,91],"tags":[1620],"class_list":["post-14844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-censorship","category-human-rights","category-mashreq","category-poet","category-poetry","tag-ashraf-fayadh","post_format-post-format-link"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14844"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14847,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14844\/revisions\/14847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}