New Poetry in Translation: ‘Love’ by Ahmed Yamani
“Love / was the axe that strikes // Love / was the hand holding the axe”
“Love / was the axe that strikes // Love / was the hand holding the axe”
“I’ve been dreaming of a wedding since the splash of / the first wet ink”
“I have discarded days in the wastebasket to make room for barrenness, and I seriously considered setting them on fire, to do my part in making the world a lighter place.”
These three translations of Asmaa Azaizeh’s “Dragonflies” appeared in the first issue of ArabLit Quarterly, which came out in the fall of 2018.
“Is there a way to contact heaven?
I wage wars against myself
And I always lose”
The collection is coming mid-October and can be pre-ordered on the MacMillan website.
” It’s certainly my experience that the deeper one goes into the surface of a text, the stranger it becomes, and the more likely one is to find something fresh in translation.”
“A dark wind bellowed out destruction / as a sweet street kitty awaited nightfall”
“. But this fervor, depth, and audacity also made exile the only possibility for such a voice, as he became a particularly odd type of globetrotter, one who remained for half a century merely one step ahead of his pursuers. “