What Have I Done to Love You Twice?
A new poem by Syrian author-architect Saer Wadoud in Alaa Alqaisi’s translation: “She is from here— / from our tears. / Ordinary as our battered land, / yet none resemble her.”
Poetry
Five Poems by Hend Jouda
These five poems are by Hend Jouda, a poet from Gaza whose grandparents were displaced from the village of Ashdod in 1948. Born in the Bureij refugee camp in 1983, Jouda has published three collections: Someone Always Leaves (2013), No Sugar in the City (2017), and A Finger That Managed to Survive (2024).
‘Yours, Anonymous’: Letters from Cairo
Fatima El-Kalay and Mai Serhan talk about Mai’s new collection, CAIRO: the undelivered letters.
Fadwa Tuqan’s ‘A Small Song for Despair’
This poem appears in Aisha Odeh’s second memoir, A Price for the Sun, in a section in which Odeh reflects on how an engagement with poetry found in Palestinian newspapers enabled the transformation of prison into a space of community both within and outside of the prison.
From ‘Ode to Hope’
“My river was always a Nile, / my patience, a wistful shore.”
New Poetry: ‘trapped cravings’
“howling in the air / the wind outside / the heart inside / unsettled and troubled”
‘Happy Birthday’: A Poem for Nakba Day
“Have you seen what parties are like in heaven? / Should I bring a gift? / Anyhow: Happy birthday, Essa.”
‘A Resonant Death’: A Poem After Fatima Hassouna
“This massacre shrinks homes into tents— / You sing with the displaced birds at its door.”
GRIEF Preview: Nasser Rabah’s ‘A Swarm of Ants’
The Spring 2025 GRIEF issue of ArabLit Quarterly is coming in three days — on April 30, 2025. Today, a poem from the issue in Wiam El-Tamami’s translation.