{"id":2524,"date":"2009-12-09T08:52:31","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T12:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=2524"},"modified":"2009-12-09T08:52:31","modified_gmt":"2009-12-09T12:52:31","slug":"george-fragopoulos-on-mahmoud-darwish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/george-fragopoulos-on-mahmoud-darwish\/","title":{"rendered":"George Fragopoulos On Mahmoud Darwish"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"a-river-dies-of-thirst-mahmoud-darwish\"<\/a>One of the better essays on the work of Mahmoud Darwish in this country was recently published in The Quarterly Conversation<\/strong> on-line magazine. I am reproducing a section of the essay below; you can read the full essay here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Tracing Mahmoud Darwish\u2019s Map<\/h3>\n

Essay by George Fragopoulos<\/span> \u2014 Published on December 7, 2009
\n\u2022 more articles by this author<\/a>
\n\u2022 more articles about this publisher<\/a>
\n\u2022 Read more about: arabic literature<\/a> | Palestinian literature<\/a> | poetry<\/a> | translation<\/a><\/p>\n

Books discussed in this essay:
\n\u2022 The Adam of Two Edens<\/a>\"\"Mahmoud Darwish. Syracuse University Press. 203 pp., $19.95.
\n\u2022 Almond Blossoms and Beyond<\/a>\"\"Mahmoud Darwish (trans. Mohammad Shaheen). Interlink Books. 96 pp., $25.00.
\n\u2022 Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982<\/a>\"\"Mahmoud Darwish (trans. Ibrahim Muhawi). University of California Press. 182 pp., $21.95.
\n\u2022 Mural<\/a>\"\"Mahmoud Darwish (trans. John Berger and Rema Hammami). Verso Books. 69 pp., $19.95.
\n\u2022 A River Dies of Thirst: journals<\/a>\"\"Mahmoud Darwish (trans. Catherine Cobham). Archipelago Books. 160 pp., $16.00.
\n\u2022 Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?<\/a>\"\"Mahmoud Darwish (trans. Jeffrey Sacks). Archipelago Books. 230 pp., $18.00.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(…)<\/p>\n

Reading Darwish\u2019s work in translation and outside of its own context can be a discomfiting experience, if only for the simple reason that it makes one that much more aware of missing out on an wealth of meaning. Scholar Ibrahim Muhawi explained in a recent talk titled \u201cContexts of Language in Mahmoud Darwish\u201d just how much is missing when Darwish is read in translation. Writing on the dialectical aspects of Darwish\u2019s use of sounds and rhythms in Arabic, Muhawi states:<\/p>\n

If you rub two dark flints against each other, you will get a spark. And if you rub two dark thoughts against each other, a new meaning will result. This is Darwish\u2019s ironic way of proposing a new kind of dialectics in which an obscure thesis rubs against an obscure antithesis, resulting in a luminous synthesis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is in the poetry the use of language as \u201cmetaphorically . . . having materiality,\u201d and this materiality brings with it a \u201cmusicality\u201d that Darwish reveled in. The dialectic that Muhawi speaks of is something inherent in the language itself, and something impossible to bring into English. The poems, therefore, frequently present challenges that a reader of the translations must be willing to accept, keeping in mind that failure to grasp the complex picture will be the order of the day; and while I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translations, all of the work under review here does read exceptionally well in English. (One major problem, however, with the Archipelago releases under review is that they lack any critical apparatus that would make approaching the poems easier. There are no endnotes, glossaries, introductions, or even footnotes, though credit should be given for the decision to present the Arabic originals side-by-side with the English translations in Why Did You Leave the Horse Alone?<\/cite> Such important critical work would have helped readers to resist the urge to universalize Darwish\u2019s poetry, which poses a great threat to the historical specificity and urgency of the work at hand. Almond Blossoms and Beyond<\/cite>, fortunately, does have an excellent introduction and some notes. Mural<\/cite>\u2014which contains the title poem and another long poem, \u201cThe Dice Player\u201d\u2014includes a couple of end notes, and a very personal and beautiful, if not overtly critical and far too brief, introduction by John Berger, along with beautiful drawings by Berger that were inspired by Darwish\u2019s life and works.) Context is of exceptional importance in reading Darwish\u2019s poetry. Poet, scholar, translator Ammiel Alcalay wrote in an essay titled \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Mahmoud Darwish?\u201d \u201cDarwish . . . comes from the tradition of political exile embodied by poets like Cesar Vallejo, Nazim Hikmet, or Yannis Ritsos\u201d and that his work, therefore, \u201cis truly an effort for those weaned on bourgeois Anglo-American and European literature. For such exiles, there is no such thing as a pure, objectified art; no \u2018engaged or disengaged\u2019 writing: their work is simply one part of the very condition of those who do not rest on some vague laurels or operate within the apparatus of assumptions that power, in the larger sense, can provide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal of Darwish\u2019s work has been to express in a language beyond language the suffering, loss, and plight of the Palestinian people. Darwish was uneasy about the title \u201cresistance poet,\u201d but did not shy away from being described as the national poet of his people. Echoing the thoughts of Anton Shammas, Darwish\u2019s poems seek to reclaim a map in language that has been lost in reality\u2014echoes, again, of the connection between the material and language. Akash states, that Darwish, like Paul Celan, asks the question of how one can \u201cwrite or think about a disaster that defies speech and compels silence, burns books, and shatters meaning?\u201d In Darwish\u2019s work the questioning of language as<\/em> language is a constant theme, part of the exploration of what poetry can possibly say in an age as barbaric as ours.<\/p>\n

(continued here<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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