“I am from Syria, my brothers and sisters; but don’t you dare pity her, / for in her dwells enough life to reconstruct the entire world and enough graves to accommodate all of you.”
“Like Negm before him, Douma has been active in nearly every Egyptian social movement of his day. As with Negm, Douma has been arrested, detained, tried and imprisoned—twenty-two times thus far.”
“This throng of questions wounds / Especially when the situation is “silent.”
“ns, one-sided as ever. But, as I tell my soul and its wishes, the window is merely the beginning of error. It is confusing that it looks at you while you cannot see.”
The author of the text translated here — one of the two poems by Nasir that appeared in the FOLK issue of ArabLit Quarterly — is a Jewish poet and popular entertainer named Nasir, who enjoyed local acclaim in Mamluk-era Cairo around the year 1300 CE.
“She has enough patience to wait for a climax with the force an earthquake, and enough shoes and slippers hanging in al-Hamidiyah market to whack fifty deserving dictators.”
Salma Harland translates the legendary “Cigarette Ash” («تراب دخان» ) written by the legendary Salah Jahin (1930-1986) in 1967.
“Many years ago / I swallowed a butterfly while I was singing.”
‘Rays of light aren’t surrounded by guards.’
