Al-Bayati: ‘When I Met al-Sayyab in 1947’
“His illusions, his distant dreams, and his winged fantasies seemed to flutter quietly with emotion and land on his poems, leaving their enchanting colorful feathers on them.”
Ghareeb Iskander
3 Arabic Translators Longlisted for John Dryden Prize, One ‘Highly Commended’
At the beginning of this week, organizers of the John Dryden Translation Competition announced the winners of their 2021 award.
Adonis: ‘When al-Sayyab Visited Beirut in 1957’
“I remember now Badr Shakir al-Sayyab – I see him in our house, with a group of friends, sitting on small straw chairs, sharing a table, or improvising a seat on the floor.”
Poetry by Ra’ad Abdulqadir: ‘The Song of the Eternal Citizen’
“Angels don’t cook / Poetry is inedible / What will we eat today? Legends?”
Monday Poetry: Ghareeb Iskander’s ‘Great Perplexity’
“In translating Derek Walcott / Words stalk / Like egrets do / In his later poems / Where he wanted / To speak of regret”
Reading T.S. Eliot in Arabic: A Talk with Ghareeb Iskander
“Saadi Youssef, in his introduction to the translation of Song of Myself, criticizes those who described Whitman as a “Sufi” poet, but he uses mystic language in his translation of Whitman’s masterpiece. It’s fascinating how a text was read and transformed into different forms and styles.”
New in Translation: ‘Song of Myself’ by Ghareeb Iskander
“There are silent voices inside me. / I will free them now / I will free also / The letters of love words / Suffocated in my mouth.”
Lock-in Summer of Lit: Ghareeb Iskander’s ‘A Letter to Adil’
“What can I do?/ Except stay deadly silent/ In this desert/ which dwells in a dark room.”
Lock-in Literature: ‘A Primitive Prayer for Uruk’
“Give her back her earrings, God / Return to her clay oven the fire / And the rain to her farms / And take away death which harvests her children.”
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