賲丨賲賵丿 丿乇賵賷卮 Mahmoud Darwish was a respected Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output and was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile.
The Lotus Prize (1969; from the Union of Afro-Asian Writers) Lenin Peace Prize (1983; from the USSR) The Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (1993; from France) The Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom (2001) Prince Claus Awards (2004) "Bosnian ste膰ak" (2007) Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings (2007) The International Forum for Arabic Poetry prize (2007)
Tras una juventud dentro de la Palestina ocupada, a帽os salpicados por numerosos arestos, se traslad贸 a Egipto y despu茅s al L铆bano para realizar su sue帽o de renovaci贸n po茅tica. Ser谩 en su exilio en Paris, tras tener que abandonar forzosamente el L铆bano, donde logre su madurez po茅tico y logre un reconocimiento ante los ojos occidentales.
En 1996, tras los acuerdos de Oslo para la autonom铆a de los territorios de Gaza y Cisjordania, dimite como ministro de Cultura de la Organizaci贸n para la Liberaci贸n de Palestina y regresa a Ramallah. All铆 dirige la revista literaria Al Karmel, cuytos archivos fueron destruidos por el ej茅rcito israel铆 durante el asedio a la ciudad en el a帽o 2002.
I don't know the desert But I planted words at its edges
So Mahmoud Darwish plants hope for his country and love in order to see the blossoming possibility of return, of meeting. He plants words in his poems to hide the emptiness of the present and the absence of home snatched by the gust of the wind. He has nothing to offer or expect, that's why the poet himself becomes his dream:
I am my dream. Whenever the earth narrows, I expand it with the wing of a swallow. I expand. I am my dream...
Poetry is the only thing left that you can trust and lean on, it shelters you from yesterday's tragedy and tomorrow's insecurity, it unites two strangers, two chased lovers on the road which leads nowhere, two shadows of what they were, it opens the door to what lies between a between. The reader discovers the poem, falls in love with Darwish's language, his country and ability to love, to become a dream, we as well as the poet inherit the land of the words and possess their precious meaning.
I feel this book is one of those pieces that Emily Dickinson best described in a letter to T. W. Higginson: If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?
It is felt before it is processed.
芦Be my love between two wars on the looking glass 鈥� She said 鈥� I do not want to retreat now to My father's fort... Take me to you vineyard and unite me With your mother, perfume me with basil-water, sprinkle me On the silver vessels, comb me, and bring me into The prison of your name, kill me with love,禄
I am a little bit disappointed with this new translation of Mahmoud Darwish's poems. I'd recommend to read the translation by Jeffrey Sacks /book/show/1...
But I am happy I've spent some nice time in the company of Darwish poetry, in the memory of the poet, on the eve of his birthday.
In the desert unseen said to me: Write!
So I said: On the mirage is another writing It said: Write to make the mirage green So I said: Absence is lacking me And I said: I have not yet learnt the words So it said to me: Write, that you may know them And know where you were, and where you are And how you came, and who you will be tomorrow, Put your name in my hand and write That you may know who I am, and go cloud-like Into space鈥� So I wrote: Who writes his story inherits The land of words, and owns meaning totally!
The Middle East of the Canaanite and Lebanon where a father and boy fight a war with an enemy they neither love nor hate women are the folklore in this tale of poetry
My first reading of Darwish and one of the most wholly musical, beautiful and wise collections of poetry I've treated myself to to this date. Sacks' work of translating Darwish to such an impressive final result is an incredible feat which you can feel on the page. Elias Khoury calls these songs to Palestine "map[s] of the human soul," which is a description i cannot improve upon. Poetry drenched in colorful metaphor yet with no corner of the human condition unturned or hidden. Absolute magnificence.