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:
Latest Poems
Featured Poems
Samar Abdel Jaber’s ‘Four Years Without You’
Translated by poet Zeina Hashem Beck.
Ahlam Bsharat: ‘I Saw a Dead Road on the Road’
Translated by poet Zeina Hashem Beck. More poetry in translation by Ahlam Bsharat.
Four Poems by Sargon Boulus Prize-winning Emad Abu Saleh
Translated by Huda Fakhreddine
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.