{"id":16505,"date":"2019-03-13T06:37:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T10:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=16505"},"modified":"2019-03-13T06:41:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T10:41:45","slug":"on-mahmoud-darwish-day-13-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/on-mahmoud-darwish-day-13-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"On Mahmoud Darwish Day, 13 Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

via the always excellent ArabLit<\/a> (Arabic Literature and Translation):<\/p>\n

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 on a March 13, we have excerpts from 13 poems and\u00a0<\/em>poemtexts. Follow the links for the more complete works:<\/i><\/p>\n

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1) \u201cThe Moon Did Not Fall Into the Well<\/a>,\u201d from\u00a0 Journal of an Ordinary Grief<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>tr. Ibrahim Muhawi<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Muhawi\u2019s translations have a wonderful sense of the rhythm of the original, and this particular text is narrative, open-hearted, and with deeply etched characters. It opens:<\/p>\n

\u2014What are you doing, father?<\/p>\n

\u2014I\u2019m searching for my heart, which fell away that night.<\/p>\n

\u2014Do you think you\u2019ll find it here?<\/p>\n

\u2014Where else am I going to nd 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.<\/p>\n

\u2014But you\u2019re picking up pebbles!<\/p>\n

\u2014Doing that is a good exercise for memory and perception. Who knows? Maybe these pebbles are petrified pieces of my heart.<\/p>\n

2) \u201cLove, like meaning,<\/a>\u201d from\u00a0 In the Presence of Absence<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>tr. Sinan Antoon.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps the greatest of Darwish\u2019s works, this version brought Antoon the 2012 National Translation Award<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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\u2019s magical acts, like rainfall and thunder. It takes you out of yourself into the other\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

3)<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe Dice Player<\/a>,\u201d from If I Were Another: Poems<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>tr. Fady Joudah<\/strong><\/p>\n

The charming \u201cThe Dice Player\u201d with a visual adaptation:<\/p>\n