Ahlam Bsharat is a poet, educator, and the author of many books for young readers. She has written numerous poems in the last six weeks. This excerpt comes from “يا أبي، لقد رأيتُ ما رأيت“, which appeared in Arab48 on November 8, 2023.

From ‘I Saw, Father, What You Saw’

By Ahlam Bsharat

Translated by Nora Parr

I saw a picture, O Father, of a man carrying his four children in the war.

It magnified your resilience in Palestine: the land of war and survival.

You carried eight, O Father,

without a groan.

…

Whenever I saw the life line

An etch across the palm of my hand

I said with a laugh:

We are a people who live long.

Yes, my father lived a hundred years.

…

My friend said:

It suits you to be the daughter of a man who lived a hundred years.

…

I don’t know, O Father,

what to say to the child who died before living only one week in this world.

They recorded his name on the death certificate

before they recorded his name on the birth certificate.

I know that your departure was hastened

a hundred years are not enough for the Palestinian.

But what do I say to this child?

If you were here,

I would ask you to share your life with him,

and you would agree,

for you were generous.

The morsel in your mouth is not for you,

so you gave him thirty years, and kept seventy for yourself.

Or you shared your life with him equally;

fifty for him. Fifty for you!

…

Perhaps he was my father,

and you were the infant who they recorded his name on the death certificate

before they recorded his name on the birth certificate,

a child born in 1948, who died before living.

Ahlam Bsharat is a Palestinian novelist, poet, and children’s author, as well as a teacher of creative writing.

Nora Parr is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and at the Center for Lebanese Studies and is the author of Novel Palestine: Nation through the Works of Ibrahim Nasrallah. She coedits Middle Eastern Literatures.

Mohja Kahf writes from Arkansas, USA.

The image is of an olive tree on the Jericho Mountains in Palestine, via Wikimedia Commons.

What I Need to Tell My Neighbors in Arkansas

By Mohja Kahf

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.  Genesis 12:3

Honey, sit yourself on my porch:

it’s about land, not ancient Abraham,

that Iraqi who was neither Jew nor Arab but grandfathered both

It’s not about ancient Sarah or Hagar

It’s about humans living on this soil watering olive trees,

not any ancient sons of Ishmael or Isaac

not their descendants either, our bloodlines diffused

across the world and mixed together:

It’s not been going on for hundreds of years, just seventy-five,

and it’s not about religion:

it’s about human rights.

Oh honey, it’s not about the ancient kingdom of Israel:

hon, that was not the same Israel

as this current state of Israel

built by European colonizers who stormed in 1948

killed the farmers on the land who were living together

Muslims and Jews and Christians and Druze and zindiqs

growing oranges hiving bees watering trees hundreds of years in peace

Colonizers stole their homes changed the locks

drove them into cages and camps

It’s not the same Israel, honey

It just took the name of Israel, trying to steal its ancient blessing

Seized the good name of Jewish folk and Judaism

Sit yourself on my porch, neighbor, and bring your good Book—

it’s not about religion, but you seem to think it is.

Let me feed you these olives and tell you how they were grown

glistening golden on a land farmed by human beings who deserve human rights

water soil home honey come sit with human beings who are

Palestinian.

God won’t curse you for loving us

Also read: ‘What Do We Do During Genocide’: A Poem by Mohja Kahf

Mohja Kahf is Syrian. One Arab is not interchangeable with another, so if you daily read a poem by a Palestinian—and you should—you must still find a Palestinian poet to read, such as Mosab Abu Toha, Lisa Suhair Majaj, George Abraham, Summer Farah. Mohja Kahf has published a novel and three books of poetry, the latest being My Lover Feeds Me Grapefruit. Some of her writing is available in Urdu, Portuguese, Turkish, Japanese, Italian, German, and French translations. She is a founding member of the Radius of Arab American Writers and winner of a Pushcart Prize.  Kahf has been a professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Arkansas since 1995.

Mohja Kahf writes from Arkansas, USA. The image is by Hesham, of a kitchen into which he’d moved only seven months before.

What Do We Do During Genocide

By Mohja Kahf

What do we do on the eve of massacre as a grim silence falls in Gaza living in the empire itself what do we do after we have sent love and thoughts and wishes and prayers and love what do we do?

Do we freeze stunned in our anguish do we shrink into the beds we have in the empire itself do we binge-watch streaming series? Do we wash the dishes love harder  love softer make more coffee in the empire’s kitchen unable to sleep do we eat unable to swallow in the empire itself? What do we do with our elbows, our minute-hands ticking slower and slower?

What do we do as the massacre begins the sickening thud thudding receiving text after text of the cousin after cousin we knew from toddlers killed and killed and killed during a genocide living in the empire funding the genocide what do we do with our wrists?

Do we do laundry do we water our heart-shaped philodendron plants breathe in breathe out during a genocide? What do we do with our loaves of bread with our tax returns what do we do with our skin?

On a flesh-burning night in Gaza as Israeli forces pinch whole families out of existence as the current state of Israel shells hospitals shells churches assassinates journalists shells schools shells bakeries during the dither-dance of did-Israel-bomb-the-hospital/did-it-not living in the empire itself funding the genocide what do we do?

Do we explain to our neighbors over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over that Palestinians are humans, beg our coworkers to imagine that Palestinians are humans being human that solidarity with Palestinians is not eliminationism that queer Palestinians are also killed by the current state of Israel that Palestinians free from the river to the sea is not eliminationism that equal human rights for human beings does not equal eliminationism that the right of return is not eliminationism that to call dissent against the current state of Israel anti-Semitic IS anti-Semitic that calling Gaza a concentration camp is what anyBODY who died in a Holocaust concentration camp would most want us to do because Never Again is for everyBODY?

Living in the empire itself during a genocide what do we do? Do we time travel visit the few humans left on a hot earth in their earthen bunkers at the end of our planet’s timeline tell them how we failed how violence can never bring real liberation how shooting up a rave cannot bring liberation how taking hostages cannot liberate how neither can genocide bring peace  neither can apartheid bring peace? living at the end of our planet’s timeline they know we failed

During genocide we dissent Nonviolently we dissent During a massacre we dissent

During a population transfer we dissent During a forced displacement we dissent During colonialism we dissent During racism we dissent During Holocaust we dissent During internment we dissent During Occupation we dissent During war we dissent

During Apartheid we dissent we BOYCOTT we dissent we DIVEST we dissent we SANCTION we dissent Because we are human and Palestinians are human and Israelis are human we dissent We LOVE we dissent We LOVE we dissent We LOVE we dissent

Living in the empire itself nonviolently lovingly every way we know how we dissent we vote we dissent we march again we sign again with our tapping fingers we dissent with our online apps we dissent with our rattling lungs with our taxes with our wallets with our feet we dissent we dissent we dissent we dissent we DISSENT WE DISSENT WE DISSENT WE DISSENT WE DISSENT WE

Also read: What I Need to Tell My Neighbors in Arkansas: A Poem by Mohja Kahf

Mohja Kahf is Syrian. One Arab is not interchangeable with another, so if you daily read a poem by a Palestinian—and you should—you must still find a Palestinian poet to read, such as Mosab Abu Toha, Lisa Suhair Majaj, George Abraham, Summer Farah. Mohja Kahf has published a novel and three books of poetry, the latest being My Lover Feeds Me Grapefruit. Some of her writing is available in Urdu, Portuguese, Turkish, Japanese, Italian, German, and French translations. She is a founding member of the Radius of Arab American Writers and winner of a Pushcart Prize.  Kahf has been a professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Arkansas since 1995.

By an ArabLit contributing writer

The current crisis in Palestine is humanitarian. It’s not queer. Not feminist. It’s a crisis of more than 14,000 dead, more than 6,000 of them children.

The war machine doesn’t distinguish between LGBTQ+ and heterosexual individuals when it carpet-bombs densely populated residential areas in Gaza, or when Israeli settlers drive Palestinians in the West Bank out of their homes.

Yet Israeli government and government-adjacent propaganda, with its bizarre combination of militarism and pseudo-relatable western-facing social media “content,” continues to pinkwash its genocide against the Palestinians again and again.

I’m not going to address sexuality and sexual rights in historic Palestine—there are many scholars who have done so—except to note that there were ceremonial rituals that took place celebrating some same-sex marriages until the British Mandate Criminal Code Ordinance No. 74 of 1936 came into force.

Although the (de)criminalization of homosexuality in Palestine has since been a patchwork affair, the queer Palestinian movement has come a long way over the past two decades.

The establishment of Aswat Palestinian Feminist Centre for Gender and Sexual Freedoms in 2002 in Haifa was foundational for the emergence of a new anticolonial, antihomophobic Palestinian discourse. They describe themselves as “a group of lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning and queer Palestinian women,” and they promote “safe, supportive and empowering spaces to express and address our personal, social and political struggles.” They continue to function to this day, with the support of Kayan Feminist Organization (est. 1998), with publications, workshops, and community engagement.

In 2007, Al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society was also established, co-headquartered in Haifa and Jerusalem, although they had been working on the ground since 2001. At time of writing, there are at least fifteen active Palestinian civil society organizations that work on promoting LGBTQ+ rights and awareness in Palestine and Israel, along with numerous Palestinian artists, musicians, and activists on the ground. They have been at the forefront of Palestinian cultural and social change, engaging in advocacy work, building LGBTQ+ communities, and raising awareness on the role of gender and sexual diversity in political activism and in everyday life.

Thanks in part to these efforts, feminist and LGBTQ+-positive sonic expression has been taking the Palestinian music scene by storm, especially over the last decade. What was once solely observed in the underground music scene has now found its way to mainstream music. Palestinian artists and musical acts such as Bashar Murad, Yusor Hamed, Jowan Safadi, Haya Zaatry, Jam‘ Taksir Band, Rola Azzar, Maysa Daw, Raymond Haddad, Terez Sliman, Makimakkuk, Mukta-Feen, Rasha Nahas, and Huda Asfour, to list a view, have been very open in their advocacy of LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, either on their own individual initiatives or as part of bigger NGO-led cultural initiatives, such as Al-Qaws’ musical projects “Ghanni ‘an at-ta‘rif: Singing Sexuality I,” “Ghanni ‘an at-ta‘rif: Singing Sexuality II,” and “Minkom O Feekom.”

From songs on being gender-nonconforming to same-sex love and from reimagined Palestinian folk songs to mainstream pop, the list below gives us a glimpse of LGBTQ+-positive Palestinian music over the past decade.

Haya Zaatry, “Nail Polish” (مناكير) (2013)

Figure 1 Haya Zaatry performing “Nail Polish” live in 2014.

Most people probably know Haya Zaatry for “Nail Polish” (مناكير) (2013) or “Borders and Promises” (حدود ووعود) (2015). During the pandemic, Zaatry and other Palestinian artists worked with Al-Qaws, a collaboration that led to the seminal album “Singing Sexuality.” “Nail Polish,” which addresses gender nonconformity, was part of that album. It was also featured a few years later on the Jordanian Netflix series AlRawabi School for Girls (2021–2022).

The Palestinian singer-songwriter, architect, and researcher is a vocal advocate of women’s rights, her songs addressing such issues as gender stereotypes, sexuality, and living under occupation. In 2016, she co-founded the Haifa-based non-profit Eljam, a platform that worked to empower the Palestinian underground music scene from 2016 to 2020.

Her other songs include “Tabula Rasa” (تابولا راسا) (2016), “Galaxy” (مجرة) (2017), “My Country” (بلدي) (2018), “Ishtar” (عشتار) (2021), and “They Told Me” (قالولي) (2021).

Haya Zaatry on YouTube / Spotify

Jowan Safadi – “I Came to My Family” (جئت لأهلي) (2013)

Figure 2 Jowan Safadi performing “I Came to My Family” live in 2014.

Singer-songwriter Jowan Safadi’s music is often laced with satire and controversy. From dissecting and criticising Islamic and Jewish religious beliefs to advocating LGBTQ+ rights to attacking the Palestinian Authority’s lack of authority, Safadi never shies from speaking his mind, whether as part of previous musical acts such as the rock bands Lenses and FishSamak or through his solo musical career. This led to him being charged by the Israeli government with “incitement to violence and support for terror in songs performed in 2010,” before finally being cleared of all charges in 2014 after a two-year legal battle. He was also detained by the Jordanian police in 2012 on accusations of “insulting religion” before being released the next day after pressure from several international artists and organizations.

For Al-Qaws’ “Singing Sexuality” album, Safadi contributed two songs, “I Came to My Family” (جئت لأهلي) and “New Mask” (قناع جديد), both written from the perspective of a young homosexual man who is trying to deal with the consequences of living closeted and coming out.

Some of Safadi’s more controversial songs are “Poor Infidels” (يا حرام الكفار) (2011), “In the Arms of Occupation” (في حضن الاحتلال) (2014), “To Be an Arab” (להיות ערבי) (2015), and “The Police Song” (البوليس مش بوليسنا) (2019).

Jowan Safadi on YouTube / Spotify

Rola Azar – “I Love You” (بحبك) (2013)

Though Rola Azar’s musical career is still relatively new, her mission has been to champion Palestinian folk music through reimagined renditions, such as “O You Going Up the Mountain” (يا طالعين الجبل) (2021) and “Song of the Northern Wind” (ترويدة شمالي) (2023). She has also made many cover versions of well-known Arabic resistance songs, such as her cover of Sheikh Imam’s “Build Up Your Castles” (شيد قصورك) (2016), and Palestinian and Syrian contemporary songs on love and loss, such as “O My Home” (يا ديرتي) (2021) and “You’re No Longer Mine” (بطلتي إلي) (2022).

Azar’s “I Love You,” a love song in which a young woman confesses her love to her girlfriend, also featured on AlQaws’ “Singing Sexuality” album.

Rola Azar on YouTube / Spotify

Maysa Daw – “I’m Free” (أنا حرة بحالي) (2013)

Figure 3 Maysa Daw performing “I’m Free” during an unplugged session with Jebus in 2022.

Internationally renowned spoken-word artist, singer-songwriter, and guitarist Maysa Daw has always championed a Palestinian anticolonial feminist discourse throughout her musical career. From impressive collaborations with Palestinian hip-hop bands DAM and the Ministry of Dub-Key, to duetting with queer-feminist Palestinian artist Yusor Hamed, to performing with the Basel-Ramallah Project in Switzerland, Daw always seeks new musical horizons. She also draws inspiration from Palestinian folk music, which she often remixes in her songs with her guitar notes, radio static, and sample recordings of live noise from Palestinian streets.

In “I’m Free,” Daw speaks from the first-person perspective of a young lesbian woman who is starting to understand and come to terms with being a lesbian. For her, this realization is not a burden, but rather a freeing revelation. “I’m Free,” which appeared on AlQaws’ “Singing Sexuality,” isn’t the only song where Daw sings of lesbian identity and experiences. This theme is also found in several of her love songs, including “You’re the World” (إنت العالم) (2017) and “Your Eyes” (عيونك) (2017). She also sings about empowering Palestinian and Arab women, such as in “Your Body of Theirs (with DAM)” (جسدكهم) (2019) and “Rise Up (Djamil Remix)” (قومي) (2020).

Maysa Daw on YouTube / Spotify

Terez Sliman – “Scheherazade” (شهرزاد) (2014)

The video recording of Terez Sliman singing “Scheherazade” during one of her live concerts was once on YouTube, dating perhaps back to 2016, but it has since been taken down. I still vividly remember her magical performance, though. On a sparsely lit stage with haze machines, Terez starts dancing barefoot, the mellow chimes of her anklets barely audible against the musical backdrop. She then starts singing with an ethereal voice “When our hands meet / My lips on hers / Winter winter winter.”

Sliman describes her musical project as “an attempt to keep on proclaiming the outstanding value of beauty for the sake of beauty.” In doing so, she doesn’t shy from breaking with social norms in her songs, openly singing about the delights and sensuality of the human body, in all its shapes, forms, and genders.

Her other songs include “Cooing of the Dove” (هديل) (2014), “Flying Kiss” (بوسة طيارة) (2014), “Snoring Moon” (شخر القمر) (2014), and “The Tables Have Turned” (دار الدولاب) (2020).

Terez Sliman on YouTube / Spotify

Yusor Hamed – “When You’re with Me” (لما تكوني حدي) (2017)

Tunisian-born Gazan singer-songwriter Yusor Hamed is known for her multi-instrumental musical talents (she plays the qanun, guitar, piano, and drums), unique deep singing voice, and lyrics that celebrate both same-sex and heterosexual love and desire, as well as women’s rights. With her unique musical arrangements that fuse Palestinian and Arab folk tonalities with electronica, her queer-feminist music easily stands out in the Palestinian indie music scene.

In “When You’re with Me,” like many of her songs, Hamed sings to a (real or imagined) female love interest. In these songs, her love interest sometimes reciprocates her feelings, but is more often likely to give in to societal restrictions, such as in “Same Old Story” (القصة هي هي) (2018), which was featured on AlQaws’ second album from the “Singing Sexuality” series.

Like Haya Zaatry, Yusor Hamed says that the pandemic presented her with an opportunity to focus more on her musical production. Hamed’s musical career had already been full of impressive collaborations with a wide array of artists from Palestine, Jordan, and Tunisia. But in March 2021, she released her biggest collaboration to date – “I’m Wild” (أصلي بري) – alongside Maysa Daw, Lina Makoul, Nancy Hawa, and Noel Kharman. The track aimed to raise awareness about violence against women in Arab communities.

Hamed’s other songs include “Bless Your Eyes” (يسلمولي هالعيون) (2017), “Scared of Tomorrow (ft. Majda)” (خايفة من بكرا) (2019), “Who Will Save Me (ft. Xena El-Shazlii)” (مين يسحبني فوق) (2020), “We Want to Live” (بدنا نعيش) (2021), and “I Sing for You” (غنيلك) (2022).

Yusor Hamed on YouTube / SoundCloud

Darbet Shams – “Let Your Love Choose” (خلي حبك يختار) (2018)

Darbet Shams is a relatively new Palestinian band, releasing their first album in 2022. They use a blend of folk, pop, and reggae to express themselves through light-hearted sarcastic lyrics on a variety of sociopolitical topics that young Palestinian people living in the occupied territories and Golan region face on a daily basis.

For AlQaws’ second album from the “Singing Sexuality” series, Darbet Shams wrote and sang “Let Your Love Choose.” Though the lyrics (written by Darbet Shams’ own Samer Asaqleh) probably sound more like a set of instructions or commandments than a pop song, the lyrics are still a welcome addition to the ever-growing body of Palestinian LGBTQ+-positive musical expression. The song, addressed to a young teenager who is starting to go through puberty, calls on the young man to follow his heart and not give in to gender stereotypes and societal restrictions on sexual expression.

Darbet Shams’ other songs include “Raise Your Voice” (دب الصوت) (2019), “Bisan” (بيسان) (2021), and “We Fight” (مناضل) (2022).

Darbet Shams Band on YouTube / Spotify

Minkom O Feekom – “O Tall Handsome Lad” (يا ظريف الطول) (2020)

The musical production of the newly formed band Minkom O Feekom has so far been in the form of musical collaborations with AlQaws. As their name suggests, Minkom O Feekom, which literally translates into “from you and among you,” believes that the LGBTQ+ community is part and parcel of the Palestinian social fabric. They’re not a distant other; rather, they’re family and friends.

Minkom O Feekom’s contribution to “Singing Sexuality” was to embark on a risky yet exciting reimagining of Palestinian folk songs, changing some of the lyrics so that they become songs on homosexuality and gender nonconformity rather than songs about heterosexual love and marriage or the loss of homeland. In their version of the Palestinian folk song “O Tall Handsome Lad,” a young man calls on his boyfriend not to travel and rather to stay with him and come out as lovers.

Minkom O Feekom’s other songs include “Bitter Is My Life” (مرمر زماني) (2020), which adapts the famous Levantine folk song of the same name into a song about female homosexuality, and “Diamonds Suit You” (بيلبقلك شك الألماس) (2020) which speaks about a gender-nonconforming young man.

Minkom O Feekom on YouTube / SoundCloud

Bashar Murad – “Farce” (مسخرة) (2021)

With his catchy, openly gay pop songs and flamboyant taste in fashion, Bashar Murad stands out as one of the most famous queer Palestinian musicians working today, his music videos watched hundreds of thousands of times on YouTube and other music streaming platforms.

Murad often adopts irony and sarcasm in his songs as a way to expose gender stereotypes as well as the realities of living under occupation as a gay person. In “Farce,” Murad proudly walks about while wearing a sheer pink shirt and a matching frilly headpiece in one scene and a white shirt with a recurring watermelon motif (a symbol of the Palestinian flag) in another, both of which then expressively contrast with the oppressive greyness of the separation walls, guns, and military-tank props featured in the video – in an obvious reference to the military practices of Israeli occupation and apartheid. He also plays on the rhyme between the two words maskhara (farce) and khara (shit) to nonchalantly and defiantly criticise the occupation forces and their indiscriminate oppression of all Palestinians, queer or otherwise.

Bashar Murad’s other songs include “More Like You” (2016), “You Won’t Change Me” (ما بتغيرني) (2018), “Everybody Is Getting Married” (الكل عم بتجوز) (2018), and “Antenne (ft. Tamer Nafar)” (انتين) (2021).

Bashar Murad on YouTube / Spotify

Yusor Hamed and Maysa Daw – “Apples” (تفاح) (2022)

With themes similar to “I’m Wild,” Yusor Hamed releases yet another brilliant collaboration with Maysa Daw. With obvious queer-feminist sentiments, “Apples” makes it clear that female beauty doesn’t have to be seen through a male gaze to be beautiful or of value. Instead, in a distant oasis away from the patriarchal gaze of society, Hamed and Daw dance to their heart’s desire before each other while repeating phrases borrowed from traditional Palestinian wedding songs (“Aweeha may God protect you from the evil eye / Aweeha once and once again / Aweeha a khamsa to protect you from ill-wishers”). Hamed then goes on to describe the delicate and beautiful features of her dark-haired female lover, before saying that she knows she’ll return one day and that they’ll consummate their love.

Yusor Hamed on YouTube / Spotify

Maysa Daw on YouTube / Spotify

Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian poet, novelist, and educator. Her novel الأكسجين ليس للموتى  (Oxygen is Not for the Dead) won second place in the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She was killed in her home in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike on October 20, 2023. She was 32.

Not Just Passing

Hiba Abu Nada

Translated by Huda Fakhreddine

Yesterday, a star said

 to the little light in my heart,

We are not just transients

passing.

Do not die. Beneath this glow

some wanderers go on

walking.

You were first created out of love,

 so carry nothing but love

 to those who are trembling.

One day, all gardens sprouted

from our names, from what remained

of hearts yearning.

And since it came of age, this ancient language

has taught us how to heal others

with our longing,

how to be a heavenly scent

to relax their tightening lungs: a welcome sigh,

 a gasp of oxygen.

Softly, we pass over wounds,

like purposeful gauze, a hint of relief,

an aspirin.

O little light in me, don’t die,

even if all the galaxies of the world

close in.

O little light in me, say:

Enter my heart in peace.

 All of you, come in!

Hiba Abu Nada was a poet, novelist, and educator. You can also read her poem “Refuge” at Protean in Huda Fakhreddine’s translation.

Huda Fakhreddine is Associate Professor of Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a writer, a translator, and the author of several scholarly books.

The following two “little” texts are translated from Abdallah Zrika’s Petites Proses published by L’Escampette in 1998. The author himself translated the texts from Arabic into French. The translations from French into English are by Moroccan poet El Habib Louai.

My Sister’s Cry in Black and White

By Abdallah Zrika

Translated by El Habib Louai

I always think of photography as a room where the dead are washed. It all started the day my brother died at seventeen, just when I was five years old.  They were washing his body in a bedroom when my sister burst out accusing a man of stealing my brother’s photo that was hanging on a wall next to a wardrobe. I still remember his shoes lying next to a ladder. Since then, every time I pass one of these photographers’ “boutiques”, I stop for a moment as if I were looking for my brother’s photo that was stolen on the day he died. Long years have passed. One day, I wanted to take photos of people, but I couldn’t. It was as if their faces had weighed so heavily on my chest that I couldn’t breathe. By now, the features of my brother’s face have almost faded from my memory, but a few images still stick to my retina: that of his black shoes placed near a ladder, rivulets of water flowing beneath the door of the small room where he was washed, a tiny sewing machine in one of the corners. I always imagine these things in black and white, maybe because of the photo of my brother that was in black and white, perhaps because the color of death that faded from my memory. Then one day I found myself in the shoes of a collector, avidly cutting up everything he could get his hands on to the extent that my bedroom was flooded with magazine and newspaper clippings. One day, a friend noticed my “mania” and gave me a camera. I’ve never handled it, but I sometimes touch or open it. One day, I finally decided to use it. I didn’t take anyone’s portrait, but I did take photos of towns that had appeared in magazines, trying to place them in compositions of my own next to various objects I found around the house. To this day, I’m unable to take anyone’s picture as if I were afraid of provoking the death of my “model”. All the photos I use belong to people who are not related to me. I like to take photos of inanimate things and in particular of things with which I feel a sense of intimacy. For example, the shadows cast by peas near a jar, or the glow of a candle devouring the darkness on a wall, or a bare foot on a staircase step shaded in black. I’ve found myself attached to everything that belongs to the world of darkness and shadows because they embrace the earth. I distrust faces because they remind me of death and that they will be stolen the day they’re washed. I can still hear my sister’s scream, but whoever stole the photo of my dead brother didn’t think of stealing the ladder, the shoes or the sewing machine. He stole the photo of a dead man being washed in an almost dark room. Above all, he robbed me of the dearest thing to me: he stripped me of the portrait of every living person, condemning me to never being able to photograph anyone. But this has opened up another world to me, one that no one would dream of robbing me of: the world of things in total solitude, things that do not seek to expose themselves to our gaze. For this reason, I like to see myself as a worn ladder hanging on a wall, or as shoes that smell of indifference, or as a sewing machine that occupies a corner with softness and calm. For this reason, I refuse to be a portrait.

My Grandmother’s Shroud

By Abdallah Zrika

Translated by El Habib Louai

When my grandmother died, an old man rode his old bicycle and went to look for a shroud. His white beard was practically touching the handlebars. I saw him from far away. He was led more by the wind than by himself, and the shroud rested on the handlebars. He threaded his way zigzagging under the force of the wind. The alleys were narrow and tortuous. Sometimes a shack moved forward on the track as he tortured himself. The wind, which was extremely strong, inflated the shroud. At times, I imagined it was not the old man riding, but that the alleys were turtles inside him, or else it was the shroud of the wind, or the shroud of the bicycle billowing. I don’t know how long it was until I heard a clamor that I prefer not to remember. Part of the shroud was caught between the spokes of the wheel. The old man fell off the bicycle straight onto his head and dropped dead a few minutes later with my grandmother’s shroud in his hands.

Born in Casablanca in 1953, Abdallah Zrika grew up in the slums of Ben Msik. He composed his first poems at age twelve & self-published his first book (Dance of the Head and the Rose) in 1977. In these so-called “years of lead” of political repression & student unrest, the book was an immediate popular success with the younger Moroccan generation—as were the many poetry readings he gave to audiences that often numbered in the thousands. In 1978 he was arrested and condemned to two years in jail for disturbing the public order and for supposed crimes against “the sacred values” of his country. Since his release in 1980 he has continued his career as a writer, becoming one of Morocco’s major voices. Abdellatif Laâbi called the early work “brutal, disheveled, wild, blasphemous, one could be tempted to say that it is voluntarily ugly—the same way people found Picasso’s paintings ugly,” while he sees the more recent work as having “restructured itself to make room for the visionary” by becoming a “crucible in which human and historical matters are transmuted. . . . After having called for the destruction of the old world, he has now put his shoulder to the task of reinventing life.” Of Zrika’s ten or so books, three have been translated into French.

El Habib Louai is a Moroccan poet, translator, musician and assistant professor of English at Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco. His research focuses on the cultural encounters, colonial discourse and postcolonial theory and he worked the Beats’ archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Fulbright grantee. He took creative writing courses at Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado where he performed with Anne Waldman and Thurston Moore. His articles, poems and Arabic translations of Beat writers appeared in various literary magazines, journals and reviews such as Al Quds Al Arabi, Al Moutaqaf, Jadaliyya, Arabli Quarterly, Al Jadeed Magazine, Al Arabi Al Jadid, Al Faisal, Al Doha, Middle East Online, Ragged Lion Journal, Big Bridge Magazine, Berfrois, Al Markaz Review, The Fifth Estate, Lumina, The Poet’s Haven, The MUD Proposal and Sagarana. Louai’s Arabic translations include America, America: An Anthology of Beat Poetry in Arabic, Michael Rothenberg’s collection of poems entitled Indefinite Detention: A Dog Story both published by Arwiqa for Translation and Studies, Bob Kaufman’s The Ancient Rain published by Dar Al Rafidain, Giorgio Agamben’s What is an Apparatus and Other Essays and Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters, both published by Dar Al Libiraliya.  He also contributed with Arabic translations to Seven Countries: An Anthology Against Trump’s Ban published by Arroyo Seco Press. Louai published two collections of poems:  Mrs. Jones Will Now Know: Poems of a Desperate Rebel and Rotten Wounds Embalmed with Tar which was a finalist for the 2020 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry.

Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian novelist, poet, educator, and nutritionist from Gaza. Her novel Oxygen is Not for the Deadwon the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She held a BA in Biochemistry and an MA in Clinical Nutrition from the Islamic University and Al-Azhar University in Gaza respectively, both of which have been destroyed by Israeli strikes. She was killed in her home in south Gaza by an Israeli raid on Oct. 20th, 2023 at 32 years old.

Our Loneliness

By Hiba Abu Nada

Translated from Arabic by Salma Harland

How alone it was,

our loneliness,

when they won their wars.

Only you were left behind,

naked,

before this loneliness.

Darwish,

no poetry could ever bring it back:

what the lonely one has lost.

It’s another age of ignorance,

our loneliness.

Damned be that which divided us

then stands united

at your funeral.

Now your land is auctioned

and the world’s

a free market.

It’s a barbaric era,

our loneliness,

one when none will stand up for us.

So, my country, wipe away your poems,

the old and the new,

and your tears,

and pull yourself together.

يا وحدنا

ربح الجميع حروبهم

وتُركت أنت أمام وحدك عاريًا

لا شعر يا درويش

سوف يعيد ما خسر الوحيد وما فقد

يا وحدنا

هذا زمان جاهلي آخر

لُعن الذي في الحرب فرقنا به

وعلى جنازتك اتحد

يا وحدنا

الأرض سوق حرة

وبلادك الكبرى مزاد معتمد

يا وحدنا

هذا زمان جاهلي

لن يساندنا أحد

يا وحدنا

فامسح

قصائدك القديمة والجديدة

والبكاء

وشدي حيلك يا بلد

(المصدر)

Hiba Abu Nada was a Palestinian novelist, poet, educator, and nutritionist from Gaza. Her novel Oxygen is Not for the Deadwon the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2017. She held a BA in Biochemistry and an MA in Clinical Nutrition from the Islamic University and Al-Azhar University in Gaza respectively, both of which have been destroyed by Israeli strikes. She was killed in her home in south Gaza by an Israeli raid on Oct. 20th, 2023. She was 32 years old.

Salma Harland is a British-Egyptian literary translator who works between Arabic and English. She was a 2022 Virtual Travel Fellow with the American Literary Translators Association; a recipient of one of the Dutch Foundation for Literature’s 2023 Translation Grants; and a longlistee for the 2022-23 John Dryden Translation Prize. Her translations have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, ArabLit Quarterly, Poetry London, and elsewhere.

This poem is shared by Gazan Palestinian poet Basman Aldirawi, also the author of “This Bread Was Born, This Bread Was Killed.”

The Idea Has Failed

 By Basman Aldirawi

Translated by Elete & Sarah Lasoye 

I sympathize with God a lot:

My heart, too, has been let down.

If we could sit together now

we’d share a cigarette. I’d rest my hand on His shoulder, and

we’d cry together until a light rain fell,

washing Gaza of this cloud of smoke

that does not belong to the sky,

stopping the din that kills another child in Gaza

and the blood that’s spilling from the world’s hand and mouth.

Life will spread across Gaza’s chest, and there will be a resurrection:

Not a wound nor a scar on her.

But scars do not die, ya Allah.

I hear Him cry: “a billion silent, a million killed.”

The sound of weeping rings out

And though I am no obedient worshipper, I pray.

I remember the faces of families and friends,

the streets, the cities, the sea,

the faces of everyone I’ve ever met, every day in Gaza.

I pray and I hear His voice, with every explosion and severed limb, shouting:

The idea has failed

The idea has failed

لقد فشلت الفكرة

اتعاطف مع الله جدا

قلبي مخذول أيضا

لو أستطيع الآن أن نجلس معا

ندخن سيجارة وأربت على كتفه

نبكي معا حتى ينزل المطر خفيفا

يغسل غزة من غيمة دخان لا تنتمي للسماء

يتوقف الصوت الذي يقتل طفلا آخر في غزة

يتوقف دمي عن السيل من يدي العالم وفمه

أن ينفح في صدرها الحياة فتقوم قيامة جديدة

لا جروح فبها ولا ندب

لكن الندب لا تموت يا الله

أسمع نحيب الله “مليار صامت ومليون قاتل”

يرتفع صوت البكاء

ورغم كوني عبد غير طائع، أصلي

أتذكر وجوه كل الأهل والأصدقاء

الشوارع والمدن ووجه البحر

وجوه كل من قابلتهم يوما يوم في غزة

أصلي وأسمع صوت الله مع كل انفجار واشلاء يصرخ

لقد فشلت الفكرة

لقد فشلت الفكرة

Image from Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages.

Basman Aldirawi (also published as Basman Derawi) is a physiotherapist and a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza in 2010. Inspired by an interest in music, movies, and people with special needs, he contributes dozens of stories to the online platform We Are Not Numbers.

Palestinian poet, scholar, and educator Refaat Al-Areer’s poem “If I Must Die” was his pinned tweet when he was killed on December 7, 2023, when an an Israeli airstrike targeted the home in Shajaiya where he was staying with his brother, his sister, and his sister’s four children, who were also killed.

Since his death, Refaat’s pinned poem has been performed by actor Brian Cox; references have been spotted on stickers on the New York City subway; quotes have been carried on makeshift kites in protests; and it’s been translated into dozens of languages.

Here, a work by poet Fady Joudah in conversation with Refaat.

By Fady Joudah

Suddenly I

“in a blaze” died.

Suddenly time

quit lingering.

Suddenly you

can’t find my body,

can’t bury

what you can’t find.

My final poem,

I wrote years before

my hour arrived.

Suddenly my voice,

thought voiceless

because stateless,

gave voice

to a noisy world.

Suddenly “a kite.”

Suddenly I.

Fady Joudah îs a poet for our times & all. He is the author of five collections; most recently, Tethered to Stars. He has translated several collections of poetry from Arabic and is the co-editor and co-founder of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize.

Note that Jadaliyya will be hosting “Portrait of a Palestinian Life: Let it be a Tale,” a celebration of Refaat’s life, with testimony by Jehad Abusalim, hosted by Bassam Haddad, on Friday, 15 December 2023, 1:00 p.m. EST | 8:00 p.m. Palestine. The event will be livestreamed at youtube.com/jadaliyya.

You Don’t Need Your Glasses, Santa

By Basman Aldirawi

Translated by Tala Ladki

Do you see that black cloud over there, Santa?

There used to be a child from Gaza, waiting for a present.

Waiting to go out with his father to the Unknown Soldier’s Square:

To ride the little cars there.

To go to the beach.

To play with the sand and the waves.

To buy a cup of corn.

Then to go home, to sleep

under the sound of the buzzing, hovering warplanes:

the ones the child thought were a part of the sky,

………….the sounds of the universe.

Did he tell you about his dreams before he slept?

What were they?

Did he dream about living, growing old?

Or maybe, like other children, he told you that children in Gaza don’t grow old.

You don’t need to put on your glasses, Santa.

See that black cloud over there, the one that rose up from the bombings just a few hours ago?

Under it lie the murdered bodies of the child,

………….his father, his mother, and his siblings.

Under it lie the toys, the house,

………….and the whole neighborhood.

And an unanswered list of hopes and dreams.

لست بحاجة لارتداء نظاراتك، سانتا

هل ترى تلك السحابة السوداء هناك يا سانتا؟

هناك كان طفل من غزة

ينتظر هدية

ينتظر أن يخرج مع ابيه

إلى منتزه الجندي المجهول

أن يركب السيارات الصغيرة هناك

أن يذهب إلى البحر

يلعب مع الرمال والأمواج

ويشتري كوب من الذرة

ثم يعود إلى البيت لينام

تحت صوت الطائرة الزنانة

التي ظن الطفل أنها جزء من السماء وأصوات الكون

هل أخبرك عن أحلامه قبل أن ينام؟

ماذا كانت؟

هل حلم ان يعيش ويكبر؟

أو ربما أخبرك كطفل اخر أن الأطفال في غزة لا يكبرون؟

لست بحاجة لارتداء نظاراتك، سانتا

تلك السحابة السوداء الظاهرة هناك

المرتفعة من قصف قبل ساعات

قتل تحتها الطفل والأب والام والاخوة

قتل تحتها ألعاب وبيت وشارع

ولائحة غير مستلمة من الأمنيات والأحلام

Basman Aldirawi (also published as Basman Derawi) is a physiotherapist and a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza in 2010. Inspired by an interest in music, movies, and people with special needs, he contributes dozens of stories to the online platform We Are Not Numbers.

Tala Ladki is from Beirut, Lebanon. After graduating with a BA in Media and Communications, she worked in marketing for several years before deciding to switch gears. She’s currently pursuing her MA in Creative Writing in hopes of starting a career in writing and publishing.

Drawing Class

Salim Al-Nafar

Translated by Danielle Linehhan Kiedaisch and Lorna MacBean, as appeared in A Bird Is Not a Stone, with permission from editors Sarah Irving and Henry Bell.

If we stopped

would the endlessness stop too?

Screaming from the fire,

I shout into darkness.

Did you hear me?

Did you answer?

The children dipped their bread in my tears

while we wrestled the chains of time

drawn to drag war onto beauty.

A child told me

‘They took my father…can you see them?’

I looked, but could not see.

But I am tired

from seeing

from journeying

from anxious days

Mother, I am tired.

Delirious our joys: delirious our sorrow

And the travel nips, nips, nips, nips…

When we stop

life becomes memory.

When we sleep,

with time

to talk.

At drawing class

time is mapped onto the contours of our homeland

and on takes of knights who kick time with their souls.

Our teacher tells us the story

And colours our minds.

Putting place into heart into the question:

What happened to our teachers?

My teacher was made absent.

No drawings, no stories, no beautiful dreams.

Tired from my travel and my question

and from a life lived in pain,

I wander.

Who will see these footsteps?

Denied in love, exhausted of anger,

they stood on clouds and took

the stars from the sky and changed

the rhythm of time.

If we stop,

will time walk on?

Never thought we would lead the young into the waves.

…

What happens to us?

Are we to learn from the absent?

That wilderness does not protect life?

I battered the door of death

and found no answer.

From this small land, we grew.

From the water came our life.

Argue with this:

The skies crush our land:

our song sings on.

The Arabic original of this poem is available (here, here, and here.)

Saleem Al-Naffar (1963-2023) was a prominent poet in Gaza, killed under Israeli bombardment along with his family in December 2023. Poet Mosab Abu Toha has translated his poem “Life,” which is available on social media. Poet Najwan Darwish recalled recently, in The Guardian, “There’s a poet, Saleem al-Naffar, who I first met in Edinburgh where we read poetry together, maybe 20 years ago. He was a wonderful, good man and very funny.” Salem Al-Naffar was born in Gaza in 1963, exiled with his family to Jordan in 1968, and returned in 1994. He published his first collection of poems in Gaza in 1996, and went on to become one of Gaza’s most prominent poets, publishing more than a dozen books.

This translation initially ran in our Summer 2019 issue of ArabLit Quarterly.

Who stormed checkpoints, taboos and fears, who conquered the darkness of the tunnel

as they passed through it like a flash of lightning. The suicides – our saints. Who were

too large for life, so they made space for themselves in death. Who could not own a life,

so they took possession of a death. Who were too sublime for charitable donations, for

hospitality that was incidental, for dinner tables where they dish for consumption, so

they slammed the door shut behind them and left. Who left the seats and prattle of

promises, and went to their silence. Who dissolved the salt of the spirit and pushed it

into the waterfall. Who tossed the bread of redemption to the fish. Who silenced the

vicious rustling of the brain and became still. There was some mix-up that brought us

here, they said, and a mix-up will take us away, so let’s just go on our own. Let us be the

mix-up ourselves. They left those at work to inherit and be the inheritors, and went to the

void. The void that stands high above, above all property or legacy. The void, dark and

frightening, which lit up their passing and made friends with it. The void, where the

suicides have a spot, a seat they can rest on. Where they have a home, trees and land

no one knows. There, they have a rooftop in nothingness where no one but the dead

can sit, a tall jasmine tree in front of their home, whose flowers they cannot smell unless

they become air. The suicides have sheep that got lost, who they go to tend. There,

they celebrate their wedding, without bride or groom, nor any children. They celebrate

the impossibility of mating, of the vanishing of their progeny, of the land gone extinct.

Every time one of them falls into the water, a new wave is born. Every time one drops

into empty space, a fresh breeze blows. The suicides invent new seas and winds.

When they dangle from ropes, they fill the empty distance between the ceiling and the

floor tiles. They bring something into nothingness. And when their corpse is carried, the

carriers find what they thought was behind them to be walking in front of them. They

find the dead corpse ahead of the living body, the past walking after the future and

death preceding life. They find that life is in the corpse, not in the body. Only those

brimming with life commit suicide. Those so full of it that it spilled over. Only those who

rise above death commit suicide. Those who become its masters. Suicides gift meaning

to death. They conquer it. Those who commit suicide leave two blots. One on the face

of life and another on the face of death. They leave traces of their dominion. And can

there be any other dominion? But to be masters is not the suicides’ demand. Erasure is their demand.

The erasure of the supremacy of life and that of death. The supremacy of

those who brought them and of those who take them away. The supremacy of the other

and of the self. The erasure that is the supremacy of existence is an act of liberation.

The suicides are our saints, the masters of erasure, masters of the void. And as they

relinquish their spirits to the void, they are not relinquishing a life but instead are

delivering a condemnation. Instead of relinquishing a corpse, they deliver the name of a

killer. Instead of giving up redemption, they hand over particles of dust. When they

relinquish their breaths, they relinquish emptiness.

Wadih Saadeh is a Lebanese-Australian poet. The judges of the 2018 Argana Prize, which Saadeh won, cited his unique contribution to “bringing about a change in the path of the Arab prose poem.”

Suneela Mubayi earned her Ph.D. in Arabic literature at NYU, where she completed a thesis on the intersection of classical and modern Arabic poetry. She has translated poems and short stories between Arabic, English, and Urdu, which have been published in Banipal, Beirut39, Jadaliyya, Rusted Radishes and elsewhere. She wishes to re-establish the position of Arabic as a vehicular language of the global South, the role it played for many centuries.

The new poem “Mary of Gaza” was composed by Ibrahim Nasrallah. The English translation is by Huda Fakhreddine.

Ibrahim Nasrallah was born in 1954 to Palestinian parents who were uprooted from their land in 1948. He spent his childhood and youth in the Alwehdat Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan, and began his working life as a teacher in Saudi Arabia. After returning to Amman, he worked as a journalist and a cultural Director. He has been a full-time writer since 2006, publishing 14 poetry collections and 22 novels, including his epic “Palestinian Comedy” series of 12 novels covering 250 years of modern Palestinian history. Four of his novels and a volume of poetry have been translated into English, including his novel Time of White Horses which was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2009 and for the 2014 London-based Middle East Monitor Prize for the Best Novel about Palestine. Lanterns of the King of Galilee was also longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2013. Three of his novels have been translated into Italian, one into Danish and one into Turkish. He is also an artist and photographer and has had four solo exhibitions of his photography. He has won eight literary prizes, among them the prestigious Sultan Owais Literary Award for Poetry in 1997. His novel Prairies of Fever was listed by The Guardian newspaper in the top 10 most important novels written about the Arab world. In 2012, he won the inaugural Jerusalem Award for Culture and Creativity for his literary work. His novel The Spirits of Kilimanjaro won the Katara Prize for the Arabic Novel in 2016. He was awarded the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel The Second War of the Dog. In 2020 he became the first Arabic writer to be awarded the “Katara Prize” for Arabic Novels for the second time for his novel A Tank Under the Christmas Tree.

Huda Fakhreddine is associate professor of Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a translator of Arabic poetry and the author of several scholarly books.

I Am Not Jesus

By Basman Elderawi

I am not Jesus, but since birth

I move along the Via Dolorosa,

carrying the guilt of the world

on my back.

I am not Jesus, but

I walk with all my pain,

searching the sky

for the face of God, our Father.

I am not Jesus, but

I will be executed

for standing, for fighting,

for speaking.

I am not Jesus.

I am his grandson.

They bomb me in his hospital,

in his church, in his home.

I am not Jesus, but

I am trying not to hate my enemy.

And yet I see no point

to spilling my blood.

I am not Jesus,

but the world watches me,

asking me to suffer humbly,

in perfect innocence.

I fight only with words.

Yet I confess to throwing stones

of judgement. Thus, I fail

to earn His name.

I am not Jesus.

The world applauds warriors,

yet calls me terrorist

for raising my voice.

I am not fighting,

but still,

I am losing.

I am not Jesus, but still:

I face the same

justice.

This Scar

By Ahmad Al-Mulla

Translated by Nour Jaljuli

He wakes up every day before every passing mirror,

to search for it on his cheek

swearing that it’s the mark he’s known by:

his tattoo, almost.

He tries to learn about what happened

to make it visible to everyone.

He forgot the defect, and the mark remained.

The scar is proof of him.

When it was etched beneath his eye,

bit by bit, his features weakened, until it overcame him,

and rubbed away his name.

The scar remained the only name by which he’s known.

Every time he tried to remember the reason behind it

he struggled.

He hid it by growing his beard long,

and turned his face to the right.

The scar haunted him in every image, every mirror.

in the eyes that stared at him,

turning back for another look.

He didn’t know himself without it.

He’d wake up and touch his face, and for a moment he

couldn’t find it.

He must be patient, must persevere.

The scar is a complete sentence, nagging at him,

not yet ripe.

He forgot where he read it,

in what book, on which wall.

The scar aches,

and sometimes he scratches it,

and usually he disappears behind it.

This scar:

he’s looking for it, smiling in anticipation, in fear,

every time he falls on his face.

Ancient Souls

By Ahmad Al-Mulla

Translated by Nour Jaljuli

I was born holding on to a scream

passed down by throats before me.

I lived my life

looking for its owner.

It’s a lookalike whose name I don’t know,

and no one can guide me to their home.

Everyone I’ve asked

pointed to an inheritance like mine

that they carry in their chest.

A will with mysterious letters

hides between the lines

of faded ink

in a cryptic handwriting I never could decipher.

This letter came, as though slipped under the door.

I shoved it in my pocket

and tried time

and again

to understand its meaning.

I noticed scars on my body

from sins I didn’t commit.

I failed to find a reason or remember a sin.

And I couldn’t find an explanation

for why my left foot constantly hurts,

or why strange faces appear in my dreams,

or why trees invade my memories—

trees my father didn’t plant.

Many times, I replaced my delusions with other urgent ones

and chose roads I didn’t want,

or pronounced sentences that gave the opposite meaning

like an apprehension telling me what it wants.

Who placed this on my tongue?

Who urged me?

I grew old in a body that was entrusted with something hidden.

How many times did I try to cut it off, or fool it,

and didn’t succeed?

Souls are ancient,

books written by ancestors and passed down,

flying and roaming with every fallen body along the way.

From up above, they inspire carefully chosen newborns.

They take them over and release them,

passengers endeavoring through life

not knowing what they carry.

Ahmad Al-Mulla is a Saudi poet and cinematographer who published his tenth book يا له من يوم هائل [What A Wonderful Day] in 2024, in collaboration with illustrator Reem Sameer Al-Bayyat.

Nour Jaljuli is a translator and poet traversing between the worlds of Arabic and English. She holds an MA in Literary Translation from the University of East Anglia and is the Arabic translator of Rana Dajani’s Five Scarves. Her translations have appeared in ArabLit, Middle East Eye, Jummar, and the 2022 UEA MALT Anthology for which she was also co-editor. You can find out more about her work on nourjaljuli.wordpress.com.

Three new poetry collections gather work mostly written in the final months of 2023.

Out now, from the Publishers for Palestine collective, is Poems for Palestine, a free booklet of poetry, artwork, and resources for action, now available for both print and online dissemination. It includes poetry from Refaat Al-Areer, Fady Joudah, Hiba Abu Nada, Olivia Elias, Samer Abu Hawwash, Maya Murry, Ahlam Bsharat, Basman Aldirawi, and Ghassan Zaqtan. From the introduction:

“Though few of us could memorize an entire essay or story, poems come readily to the tongue and can be chanted or read aloud at gatherings, shared and re-shared on social media. They vibrate between us, move between languages, and connect memory to memory. Yet they are not only our shared sonic landscape, but also a visual one, with poetry written on stickers and placed beside bus seats and on lampposts; written on cardstock and held aloft during protests; penned elegantly for signs in windows. Poetry can be composed as quickly as a news story, and yet it resists the language of normalized oppression, searching for ways to help us see past the dulled passive voice of contemporary news coverage.”

Poems for Palestine is available free as an ebook at the Publishers for Palestine website, the ArabLit shopfront, and in limited print copies.

Out March 1 from SmokeStack Books, Out of Gaza is an anthology edited by Palestinian scholar-translator Atef Alshaer and Alan Morrison. The anthology, which Smokestack Books is calling “an emergency collection of poems” brings together work by fifteen Palestinian writers about the current moment, including poems by Naomi Shihab Nye, Hala Alyan, Farid Bitar, Ali Abukhattab, Marwan Makhoul, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Mohammed Mousa, Dareen Tatour and Sara Saleh. They add that a percentage of all sales will go to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

In his introduction, Alshaer writes, “Poetry at times of grave violence and danger as that experienced by the 2.3 million living in Gaza is something akin to the terrible impossible in all our dreams. But the higher calling of humanity makes poetry a duty, a duty to register pain and communion between and with the oppressed, with those whose very lives are under severe risk. In this case, poetry is a duty because it records the last stand of the soul as it stares death and destruction in the face, such keenness for the human voice to survive, and live long after humanity failed to preserve life and after all the cries for justice were not heeded.”

Out of Gaza is available for pre-order on Bookshop.

And finally, later in March, Fady Joudah’s extraordinary […] will be available from Milkweed in the US (March 5) and Outspoken Press in the UK (March 21). A collection of poems written mostly in the final months of 2023, these works re-invent the present, dissociating us from the worn-thin language of contemporary journalism and commentary and bringing us back down among the present to imagine it — and ourselves, and possibility — anew. The poetic voice is funny and tender and strange, and yet without looking away — or allowing us to look away — from the horrors of the present. You can read a handful of the poems online (many of which are also titled […]) before you pre-order. Here, on the New York Times; here, in The Nation.

[…] is available for pre-order directly from Milkweed and Outspoken Press, as well as on Bookshop and other outlets.

Nearly four decades after his death at the age of 28, Riyad al-Saleh al-Hussein’s work remains a vibrant part of the poetic and imaginative landscape of Syria and beyond. This poem is from the collection Daily Legends. 

War. War. War

By Riyad al-Saleh al-Hussein

Translated by Ibtihal Rida Mahmood

A lover moves between the rattle of exiles and the rattle of words

A lover, like this bloody wilderness, these golden corpses,

Exits one time to sing

Enters one homeland to sing

Buys loaves and hoes

Buys sidewalks and mills

Buys a sorrow

And a tank fallen between the jaws of an oleander

Buys a handsome grave for an airplane

And green branches of eternal bliss for enamored women

A lover goes through the rattles of exiles and gunshots

A lover said:

War, there it is,

Taking off its wooden garbs

Exposing its insectile nakedness:

Blood and sidewalks

And notebooks, wet with whimpers

Blood, a woman in love, and notebooks drenched in blood

Blood and loaves

Tight bracelets

Wide minarets

And migrating birds

A massacre and peoples

A massacre and flowers

This is war, opening a window onto love for the killers

And for the lovers, it will open a window onto graves

***

In the wars that have left

In the wars that remained

In the wars that tried to come

The familiar face of a woman in love wallowed in the sand

In the pain of social classes

Enamored beauties went out to the balconies

Showing their bloodied bodies to God

And God once came to the villages, accompanied by soldiers

He filled his royal apron with wars

And dispersed them over the threshing floors

The threshing floors made of silver and rendezvous

The threshing floors were silver

And then there were wars

And you, girl, do you go home

Or do you go to death

Do you go to the grass

Or do you go to war

We walked and we walked and were pierced by bullets

We walked and we walked in a circle; a diameter of a thousand sorrows

Hand in hand, we sing

Hand in hand, we die

And you, Death, don’t you come in the summer

The birds share our summer

Death, don’t you come on a frightened and distant rain

Don’t come

For the earth is thirsty

The seasons are broken

The barley will dry up

And the women will weep over their lovers

Don’t come… Don’t come

But death comes

But war comes in its insect shape

Enters through the keyhole

Through the weep hole

Spawns in a bar—in newspapers—in books

Spawns in the corpses of enamored women

Then calls on the murderers: “Rest, rest.”

And feeds us misery and bullets

***

A lover said:

After two days of fatigue and bullets

A woman in love crosses over from the land

Stretches out her arms to rain, to pears

Stretches out her arms to the water

Washes the tongues of orators and censors

Records the balances of the poor, gobbled up by war,

On a tree-notebook

Shreds the General’s hat

And, two evenings of rain and pears ago, I saw:

Under the General’s hat, there were villages

that sucked the bones of their children dry

And two chopped arms

And I see, under the General’s hat:

Bright blood

Broken skulls, spelling out the letters of the country

And in each letter, the projects from a crooked dream

Under the General’s hats, I see:

A project for a war on flowers

A project for a war on the river

A project for a war on the poor

And from between two chopped-off arms

The lovers escape love

The dead escape death

The poor escape poverty

Then a bomb drops, the fierce invaders come along

From a teacup, a cigarette, and a morning

And from a teacup and a cigarette

the global revolution begins

Or the many wishes begin

The orators begin their speeches

And the soldiers their bullets

Then I am done with sadness

I throw it under the General’s hat

Run in a limitless killing field

/Now, I am content with my country

Content with my oppression/

And, in limitless time, I see my beloved on a beach

Taking a break from despair

She asks me about a delicious place with no police

A place where we could exchange poems and kisses

I say: That is the sea

The sea, she says. The sea, she says

And smiles.

حرب. حرب. حرب

(من مجموعة: أساطير يومية)

عاشق ذاهب بين حشرجة النازحين وحشرجة الكلمات

عاشق مثل هذي البراري المدمّاة والجثث الذهبية

يخرج من زمن ليغني

ويدخل في وطن ليغني

يبتاع أرغفة ومعاول

يبتاع أرصفة ومعامل

يبتاع حزناً شديداً

ودبابة سقطت بين فكي زهرة دفلى

يبتاع قبراً وسيماً لطائرة

وغصوناً خضراء من فرح أبدي للعاشقات

عاشق ذاهب بين حشرجة النازحين وحشرجة الطلقات

عاشق قال:

هذه هي الحرب

تخلع قمصانها الخشبية

تكشف عن عريها الحشري:

دماء وأرصفة

ودفاتر مبتلة بالنشيج

دماء وعاشقة ودفاتر مبتلة بالدماء

دماء وأرغفة

وأساور ضيقة

ومآذن واسعة

وطيور تهاجر

مجزرة وشعوب

مجزرة وزهور

هذي هي الحرب تفتح نافذة الحب للقاتلين

وللعاشقين ستفتح نافذة للقبور

***

في الحروب التي ذهبت

في الحروب التي بقيت

في الحروب التي حاولت أن تجيء

كان وجه أليف لعاشقة يتمرغ في الرمل

والألم الطبقي

كانت العاشقات الوسيمات يخرجن للشرفات

ويعرضن أجسادهن المدمّاة لله

والله كان يجيء القرى وبصحبته الجند

كان يعبئ مئزره الملكي حروباً وينثرها في البيادر

كانت البيادر فضة ومواعيد

كانت البيادر من فضة

ثم كانت حروب

وهل تذهبين إلى البيت

أم تذهبين إلى الموت

هل تذهبين إلى العشب

أم تذهبين إلى الحرب

كنا نسير نسير وتثقبنا الطلقات

وكنا نسير نسير بدائرة قطرها ألف حزن

يداً بيد ونغني

يداً بيد ونموت

ويا أيها الموت لا تأت في الصيف

إن الطيور تشاطرنا الصيف

يا أيها الموت لا تأت في مطر خائف وبعيد

لا تأت

فالأرض عطشانة

والمواسم مكسورة

والشعير سينضب

والعاشقات سيبكين عشاقهن

ولا تأت.. لا تأت

لكنه الموت يأتي

ولكنها الحرب تأتي بهيئتها الحشرية

تدخل من ثقب باب

ومن ثقب نافذة

تتناسل في حانة – صحف – كتب

تتناسل في جثث العاشقات

ثم تنده للقاتلين: “استريحوا.. استريحوا”

وتطعمنا البؤس والطلقات

***

عاشق قال:

بعد نهارين من تعب ورصاص

تجيء من الأرض عاشقة

وتمد يديها إلى مطر وإجاص

تمد يديها إلى الماء

تغسل ألسنة الخطباء وألسنة الرقباء

تسجل أرصدة الفقراء التي ابتلعتها الحروب

على دفتر شجري

تمزق قبعة الجنرال

:وقبل مساءين من مطر وإجاص أرى

تحت قبعة الجنرال قرى مصمصت عظام أطفالها

ويدين تقطعتا

وأرى تحت قبعة الجنرال:

دماً ساطعاً

وجماجم مكسورة تتهجى حروف البلاد

وفي كل حرف مشاريع من حلم فاسد

وأرى تحت قبعة الجنرالات

مشروع حرب على الزهر

مشروع حرب على النهر

مشروع حرب على الفقراء

وبين يدين تقطعتا

يهرب العاشقون من العشق

والميتون من الموت

والفقراء من الفقر

من ثم تسقط قنبلة ويجيء الغزاة الأشداء

من كأس شاي وسيجارة وصباح

ومن كأس شاي وسيجارة تبدأ الثورة العالمية

أو تبدأ الأمنيات الكثيرات

يبدأ الخطباء خطاباتهم

والجنود رصاصاتهم

ثم أفرغ من الحزن

أقذفه تحت قبعة الجنرال

وأركض في مقتل لا يحدّ

/أنا الآن مقتنع ببلادي

ومقتنع باضطهادي/

وفي زمن لا يحدّ أرى من أحب على شاطئ

تستريح من اليأس

تسألني عن مكان لذيذ بلا شرطة

نتبادل فيه الأناشيد والقبلات

أجيب: هو البحر

قالت هو البحر. قالت هو البحر

.وابتسمت

Riyad al-Saleh al-Hussein (1954-1982) suffered throughout his short life from deafness, kidney failure, and diabetes. He scrounged a meager living working various menial jobs. He channeled his ailments, loves, and politics into unrhymed free verse that is at once simple and disarming. His poetry somehow foresees the devastation in Syria today.  You can read more of his work on ArabLit, Poetry London, and Asymptote, and in the Two Lines collection Home. 

Ibtihal Rida Mahmood is a Jordanian American writer and translator based in New England, USA.

From Gaza, Answering Darwish

By Basman Eldirawi

with Mahmoud Darwish, translations by Ibrahim Muhawi

In March, spring rains return, first cold, then warm.

We think it’s the time to relax, to unfold, to bloom.

ليس الزمن‏‏ في غـزة استرخاء‏‏ ولكنه

 اقتحام الظهيرة المشتعلة

Time in Gaza is not relaxation, but

storming the burning noon.

We both know time in Gaza is different,

But you were born in spring, Mahmoud,

The perfect season for the writing of our triumph.

نظلمها حين

 نبحث عن أشعارها

 فلا نشوهن جمال غزة

We do injustice to Gaza

when we look for its poems,  

so let us not disfigure Gaza’s beauty.

In Gaza, our beauty remains constant,

Where a poet’s mind can settle, or fight, or sing.

أجمل ما فيها أنها خالية من الشعر

 في وقت حاولنا أن ننتصر فيه على العدو

 بالقصائد فصدقنا أنفسنا

 وابتهجنا حين رأينا العدو يتركنا نغني

What is most beautiful in it is

that it is devoid of poetry,

at a time when we tried to triumph over the enemy

with poems, so we believed ourselves

and were overjoyed to see the enemy letting us sing.

It was your mission to make a poem of Gaza,

Caught in the constancy of our beautiful nightmare.

Clouds roll in and out to sea,

Comforting the eyes for those seconds

When the drones hum out of sight.

Sea waves roll on and off the beach,

Soothing the ears for those moments

When the warships leave the horizon.

ونظلم غزة حين نحولها إلى أسطورة

 لأننا سنكرهها حين نكتشف أنها

ليست أكثر من مدينة فقيرة صغيرة تقاوم

We do injustice to Gaza when we turn it into a myth,

because we will hate it when we discover that

it is no more than a small poor city that resists.

Poetry is different in a place where Death lives.

Death lives in Gaza, but, if Gaza had a heart,

It would not resemble a poet’s heart.

Gaza’s heart beats poetry into her veins.

She challenges her enemy’s endurance.

She keeps on searching for love.

The world does injustice to Gaza.

We do injustice to Gaza, Mahmoud.

Yet we were born in a time for poems,

For telling the world that Gaza is not a myth,

Even though it is no more

than a small poor city that resists.

*

Basman Aldirawi (also published as Basman Derawi) is a physiotherapist and a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza in 2010. Inspired by an interest in music, movies, and people with special needs, he contributes dozens of stories to the online platform We Are Not Numbers.

In the Fall 2021 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, we focused on FOOTBALL, and especially its many literary manifestations. Among these are the chants sung at matches; the issue brought together diverse chants from Algeria, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, and Palestine. In each country, the football chants reflect not just the fans’ relationship with their team, but with the wider society and world. In the two chants author Ameer Hamad selected and translated for this issue — from the Hilal Al-Quds Club in Jerusalem and Hapoel Umm al-Fahm FC in Umm al-Fahm — it’s not just important to win, but to stand strong as Palestinians.

Hapoel Umm al-Fahm FC – al-Hamra’ Rayatna (Red Is Our Flag)

Umm al-Fahm is a Palestinian city that was occupied in 1948. Thus, the residents of this city hold Israeli passports, and their team plays in the Israeli league. The city is like a Palestinian castle in Israel, against the Israeli policies and right-wing politics. (See on YouTube.)

Oh oh oh

Red is our flag

Oh oh oh

And victory is our goal

Since I was in elementary school

I’ve supported al-Fahmawiya

Wearing the team scarf and a Kufiyya

I come to you on Fridays

I pray for you

I sing for you

We are tired of the First Division

Our youth is wasted there

We’ll qualify for Premier League!

No matter how long it takes us

We have raised the flag

The whole world is against us

Oh oh oh

Red is our flag

Oh oh oh

And victory is our goal

Fahmawy and your sons, oh Lajjun

Are worth the world to me

I will return to Lajjun no matter what

In the stands we raised our voices

We’ll cheer until death

I’m Palestinian until death

In 1984

[Meir] Kahane and the right-wing

Went back disappointed

[Baruch] Marzel tried again

They couldn’t enter the city

Umm al-Fahm, the free one

Oh oh oh

Red is our flag

Oh oh oh

And victory is our goal

Hilal Al-Quds Club – Hurriya (Freedom)

This club is in East Jerusalem, which was occupied in 1967. Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, and the old city of Jerusalem are part of the occupied east side. The Palestinians who live in this place have a different legal situation from the Palestinians who live in the 1948 lands (like Umm-Al-Fahm), or in the West Bank. They are neither Israeli citizens nor Palestinian citizens, but hold temporary Israeli ID cards. My father used to play for this club, which plays in the West Bank Premier League (Gaza has its own league due to the Israeli siege). (Watch on YouTube.)

Olé, olé, olé, olé

Freedom, and Jerusalem will stay Arab

Freedom, al-Aqsa, by God, in my eyes

Freedom, God, Hilal, Jerusalem is Arab

Olé, olé, olé, olé

Freedom, inshallah we will reach the top

Freedom, yalla Hilal, be strong

Freedom, each of us has the strength of a hundred men

Olé, olé, olé, olé

Freedom, Jerusalem, and the West Bank

Freedom, we won the treble

We made all the Jerusalemites happy

Olé, olé, olé, olé

Freedom, I’ll buy you with my spirit and my eyes

Freedom, we came to you with strong determination

Freedom, we are the Hilalian Lions

Olé, olé, olé, olé

Olé, olé, olé, olé

You can find copies of the FOOTBALL issue at GumRoad.