Two (Communist) Poems by Saadi Youssef
“I’ve said it before, and I say it now on this London evening / before it’s too late: / I am the last communist!”
Poetry
Mohammed el-Makki Ibrahim and the Homeland as Beloved
For Sudanese readers living through the current crisis, the following lines by the late Mohammed el-Makkī Ibrahim resonate with striking immediacy, even though they were written in the 1980s. Beneath the layers of grief, a restrained optimism continues to breathe through its lines.
‘The Love’: New Poetry in Translation by Hoda Omran
“Marriage is the afterlife / for which we have to cross this life, / leaving behind our homes and pasts, / waiting for justice with a light heart, / where our homes become our graves.”
Two New Poems by Olivia Elias
“nothing to hold on to no more suitcases / & nothing left to take away”
‘The Experience’: New Poetry in Translation by Hoda Omran
“My city is full of barking / as if it were our shared memory / howling out there, in the cold.”
Three Poems by Fady Joudah
“After the genocide, / the genocide.”
‘Rewaa, My Beloved…’: New Poetry by Asmaa Dwaima
Three months ago, ArabLit contributor Asmaa Dwaima lost her sister, who was martyred along with her little son. This poem is for her sister, Rewaa.
Two New Poems by Marah Muhammad Al-Khatib
Nineteen-year-old poet Marah Muhammad Al-Khatib is a student in data science in Gaza who is one of the laureates of ArabLit’s Summer 2025 Gaza Literary Translation Series; her work has appeared in Spanish with Elvantodelsuimangr and Gaza Tarevista.
Hanan Issa, Writing After Nazik al Malaika
This poem was commissioned for the Voiced festival, highlighting global and local endangered languages through creativity; author Hanan Issa also talks here about her relationship with the poetry of Nazik al Malaika.