On Poetry & Translations

“You realize that you need to be free, otherwise it doesn’t work.” –Stephanie Dujols, on translating Arabic poetry into French.

“In fact, for those of us who study Arabic poetry in other languages, ultimately all our translations are prose poetry.” –Huda Fakhreddine, on translating Arabic poetry into English.

How you can submit poetry in Arabic, and translations of Arabic poetry:

To the website

To the magazine

Latest Poems


Featured Poems

Samar Abdel Jaber’s ‘Four Years Without You’

Translated by poet Zeina Hashem Beck.


Featured Interviews and Essays on Poetry & Translation

Marilyn Hacker & Samira Negrouche: On Translation, Collaboration, and ‘Exploring the Impossible Between Us’

Iman Mersal: On Why Women’s Poetry in Arabic is Where It’s At

Ghareeb Iskander: Reading T.S. Eliot in Arabic

Levi Thompson: Finding a Voice in English for ‘My Heart Became a Bomb’

Robyn Creswell: Thinking About Beginnings

Dunya Mikhail: Writing Without Falling Into Narrow ‘Political Poetry’

Samira Negrouche: On Her 3 Mother Tongues, Translating Poetry, and Collaborative Writing


#ArabicTranslationChallenge

This series of challenges, which ran in 2020 and was curated by Kevin Blankinship, was open to the public and involved translations into many languages and styles.

‘Fee for a Feline’

‘You’ve Aged Like a Cat!’

‘Like a Lion with Spots’

‘Here Comes the Ripper’

‘No Way But The Way’

‘Avarice and Fury’

‘Every Father Kills his Son’