New in Translation: Three Poems by Riyad al-Saleh al-Hussein
“I want to put a sea / in my prison cell / I want to steal all prison cells / and throw them in the sea”
Poetry
A Valentine’s Poem: Mouna Ouafik’s ‘I Decorate Her Navel with Ezra Pound’s Penis’
“I will push your thighs together. You will open them like a pair of translated poems.”
New Poetry in Translation: Fadi Azzam’s ‘If You Are Syrian These Days …’
“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.”
Let Us Spell Out Life: Prison Writing by Ahmed Douma
“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.”
Poem #10 from Ahmed Douma’s ‘Curly’
“This throng of questions wounds / Especially when the situation is “silent.”
An Excerpt from Ahmed Douma’s ‘Blasphemy’
“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.”
Poetry in Translation: The 13th Century ‘My Religion—My Wine’
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.
Poetry in Translation: Fadi Azzam’s ‘This Is Damascus, You Sons of Bitches’
“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.”
Poetry in Translation: Salah Jahin’s ‘Cigarette Ash’
Salma Harland translates the legendary “Cigarette Ash” («تراب دخان» ) written by the legendary Salah Jahin (1930-1986) in 1967.