{"id":6949,"date":"2011-10-04T07:17:29","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T11:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=6949"},"modified":"2011-10-04T07:20:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-04T11:20:13","slug":"taha-muhammad-ali-1931-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/taha-muhammad-ali-1931-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Taha Muhammad Ali (1931-2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Palestinian poet\u00a0<strong>Taha Muhammad Ali\u00a0<\/strong>has died at the age of 80. Adina Hoffman\u00a0 wrote a biography of Taha called <em>My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness<\/em>, and her husband Peter Cole has translated his poetry.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><iframe data-src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K4fpjDUl1vk\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" data-load-mode=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>REVENGE<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin<\/em><\/p>\n<p>At times &#8230; I wish<br \/>\nI could meet in a duel<br \/>\nthe man who killed my father<br \/>\nand razed our home,<br \/>\nexpelling me<br \/>\ninto<br \/>\na narrow country.<br \/>\nAnd if he killed me,<br \/>\nI\u2019d rest at last,<br \/>\nand if I were ready\u2014<br \/>\nI would take my revenge!<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>But if it came to light,<br \/>\nwhen my rival appeared,<br \/>\nthat he had a mother<br \/>\nwaiting for him,<br \/>\nor a father who\u2019d put<br \/>\nhis right hand over<br \/>\nthe heart\u2019s place in his chest<br \/>\nwhenever his son was late<br \/>\neven by just a quarter-hour<br \/>\nfor a meeting they\u2019d set\u2014<br \/>\nthen I would not kill him,<br \/>\neven if I could.<\/p>\n<p>*<br \/>\nLikewise &#8230; I<br \/>\nwould not murder him<br \/>\nif it were soon made clear<br \/>\nthat he had a brother or sisters<br \/>\nwho loved him and constantly longed to see him.<br \/>\nOr if he had a wife to greet him<br \/>\nand children who<br \/>\ncouldn\u2019t bear his absence<br \/>\nand whom his gifts would thrill.<br \/>\nOr if he had<br \/>\nfriends or companions,<br \/>\nneighbors he knew<br \/>\nor allies from prison<br \/>\nor a hospital room,<br \/>\nor classmates from his school \u2026<br \/>\nasking about him<br \/>\nand sending him regards.<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>But if he turned<br \/>\nout to be on his own\u2014<br \/>\ncut off like a branch from a tree\u2014<br \/>\nwithout a mother or father,<br \/>\nwith neither a brother nor sister,<br \/>\nwifeless, without a child,<br \/>\nand without kin or neighbors or friends,<br \/>\ncolleagues or companions,<br \/>\nthen I\u2019d add not a thing to his pain<br \/>\nwithin that aloneness\u2014<br \/>\nnot the torment of death,<br \/>\nand not the sorrow of passing away.<br \/>\nInstead I\u2019d be content<br \/>\nto ignore him when I passed him by<br \/>\non the street\u2014as I<br \/>\nconvinced myself<br \/>\nthat paying him no attention<br \/>\nin itself was a kind of revenge.<\/p>\n<p><em>Nazareth<\/em><br \/>\n<em>April 15, 2006<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Palestinian poet\u00a0Taha Muhammad Ali\u00a0has died at the age of 80. Adina Hoffman\u00a0 wrote a biography of Taha called My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness, and her husband Peter Cole has translated his poetry.&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,79,91],"tags":[1062],"class_list":["post-6949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries","category-palestine","category-poetry","tag-taha-muhammad-ali"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6949","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=6949"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6957,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6949\/revisions\/6957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}