Beatrice (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
Here’s the opening lines from If I Were Another, a posthumous collection of the lyric epics of Mahmoud Darwish, as translated by Fady Joudah: …As I look behind me in this night into the tree leaves and the leaves of life as I stare into the water’s memory and the memory of sand I do not see in this [...]
Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
highly of the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai. But he was careful to point out that the conflict in Palestine was a struggle "between two memories" and that Amichai would only admit the existence of one. Darwish insisted that each side tell its narrative freely so that a dialogue would result. In Darwish's last years he let these wide cultural interests emerge in his poetry....
Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
"I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet." Just as a critique of poetry might only change the critic. Which brings us to a justification of this essay, though it's a pity that one should be necessary. from...
stars sliding (Free subscription) | 09/25/2009
I got my first book of Mahmoud Darwish recently... it's his latest (and last) A River Dies of Thirst . Preface by Ruth Padel. Translated by Catherine Cobham. It's a mixture of poems and prose pieces written when Israel was punching Gaza and Lebanon in 2006. Here's one: The butterfly effect by Mahmoud Darwish The butterfly effect is invisible The butterfly effect is always...
KR Blog (Free subscription) | 10/29/2009
Mahmoud Darwish wrote, “Coffee is the sister of time.” How true. For me, it’s best to drink coffee in the afternoon, after I have finished with my teaching responsibilities, after the room is swept, my chores completed, and there is only the blankness of time until sunset. Coffee is the couch I lie back on [...]
ArtCal (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
... journalist Leila El Haddad, to the Israeli writer David Grossman and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, together with other sources such as blogs, newspapers, magazine articles, and audio clips downloaded from the Internet, the artists construct an imaginary dialogue in which different points of view, cultures, and origins converge until they eventually overlap, displaying a shared...
CBC.ca (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
A Canadian citizen has been sentenced to 15 months in prison by a Maryland judge for failing to inform U.S. immigration authorities he was working for the Iraqi government.Mouyad Mahmoud Darwish hides his face from reporters as he walks towards a transport van after appearing in a U.S. District Court in Buffalo, N.Y. in 2008.(Don Heupel/Associated Press)Mouyad Mahmoud Darwish,...
Poetry Hut Blog (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
... “She really pours herself out.” — *** — Do You Believe in Magic? {congrats} — *** — Dharma Poetry: Mahmoud Darwish — *** — The Last Poet To Win The Nobel Prize — *** — Experience, including “first book,” changes one’s life. But every book begins in the nowhere. — *** — narrative poetry, an essay — *** — I was about to say that I don’t understand how people can get upset at a lowly...
Beattie's Book Blog (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
Does poetry matter? 21 October 2009 6.30pm Venue: University of Auckland, Lecture Theatre OGGB3, Owen G. Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland. Faculty of Arts seminar by Ian Wedde , University of Auckland Creative New Zealand Writer-in-Residence at the Michael King Centre. In 2008 the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish gave his last reading in a Beirut football stadium to an audience...
Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
... a while. In the past few decades, no one who has received the prize, deserved the prize more than Mahmoud Darwish or John Updike, both of whom died this past year without becoming Nobel Laureates. In Great Regulars, Hillel Italie says in his AP article, "The judges, apparently, could not help themselves." And we headline with a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty interview with...
Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 09/30/2009
... Andrew Motion among others. You'll find links to these in Great Regulars. We begin this week with Mahmoud Darwish and peace. Thanks for clicking in. Peace. Yours, Rus Our links: IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags Poetry & Poets in Rags blog IBPC Home ~~~~~~~~~~~
The Independent (Free subscription) | 09/27/2009
Albums as perfect as this appear rarely. Tunisian oud maestro Brahem has been one of ECM's most-revered artists for years, pioneering a superior kind of east-west fusion (although that makes it sound less interesting than it is). But this quartet recording beats anything I've heard from him yet. Dedicated to the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, the album's eight originals trace...
ArtsJournal (Free subscription) | 09/25/2009
"Israeli readers are spoilt for choice when it comes to tracking down international literature in Hebrew translation." Great novels are available from across the world - except the Arab world. A new publisher in Tel Aviv called Andalus Books is working to change that. "Thus far, they have published 22 titles, including works by Mohammed Berrada, Mahmoud Darwish, Taha Muhammad...
The Diary Junction Blog (Free subscription) | 09/23/2009
Saqi Books has just published an English translation of a ‘diary’ by the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who died last year. The book - A River Dies of Thirst - is less a traditional diary and more a collection of poetry and jottings written in Ramallah during the summer of 2006, in a period when Israel was attacking Gaza and Lebanon.Darwish was born in 1941...
