I don't know about this, Alison. From what little I understand about
Arabic I gather that, as a literary medium, it is rather as if
everyone in English still wrote in the style of the King James Bible.
The translation seems rather like a dodgy version of Rimbaud, I do get
the feeling that there's something there, behind the translation, but
that text itself doesn't quite do it for me: for all its angst, it
conveys of feeling of somebody having a bad hair day, that isn't, I
must emphasize, my verdict on Darwish, rather a reaction to a
translation.

All the Best

Dave

2008/8/30 Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>:
> I find Darwish's work complex and compelling and moving. Below is a
> prose poem which clearly is drawing from Rimbaud, but with a bitter
> and excoriatingly honest (and no doubt dangerous) twist. You can also
> listen to some Arabic originals
> http://www.mahmouddarwish.com/english/audio.htm
>
> A
>
> You, as of now, are someone else!
>
> Mahmoud Darwish
>
> Was it inevitable for us to fall from such heights, and see our blood
> on our hands… for us to realize that we are no angels… as we used to
> think? Was it also necessary for us to expose our genitals to
> everyone, to make sure our reality is no longer a virgin?
> Such liars were we when we said: We are exceptional!
>
> To believe yourself is much worse than lying to someone else! To be
> friendly with those who hate us, and ruthless to those who love us –
> this is the inferiority of the conceited, and the arrogance of the
> situation!
>
> Oh past, do not change us… the further away we move from you! Oh
> future: do not ask us: who are you? And what do you want from me? We
> too have no clue. Oh present, bear with us a little, we are no more
> than dreary passers by!
>
> Identity is our legacy and not our inheritance; our invention and not
> our memory. Identityis the ruin of the mirror that we should break as
> soon as we like our image! He put on a mask, put on courage, and
> killed his mother… because she was the easiest prey… and because a
> female soldier stopped him and exposed her breasts asking: Does your
> mother have breasts like these?
>
> If it wasn't for modesty and darkness, I would have visited Gaza,
> without knowing the road to the new house of Abu Sufian, nor the name
> of the new prophet. If Mohammad hadn't been the last of the prophets,
> each gang would have had its own prophet, and each companion a
> militia! We admired June in its 40th anniversary; if we can't fine
> someone to defeat us again we defeat ourselves with our own hands,
> lest we forget!
>
> No matter how long you stare into my eyes, you will not find my gaze
> there. It has been kidnapped by a scandal! My heart is not mine… and
> it is no one's. It has claimed independence, without turning into
> stone. Does he who chants over the body of his victim-brother: "Allahu
> Akbar", know that he is an infidel, since he sees God in his own
> image: lesser than a well formed human being?
>
> The prisoner, eager to inherit the prison, hid his smile of victory
> from the camera. But he did not succeed in restraining the happiness
> streaming from his eyes; perhaps because the rushed text was much
> stronger than the actor. Why do we need Narcissus, as long as we're
> Palestinians, and as long as we don't know the difference between the
> Jame' (mosque) and the Jame'ah (university), both words having the
> same root. What need to we have for a state… as long as it is moving,
> along with the days, towards the same destiny?
>
> A large sign at the door of a nightclub: We welcome Palestinians
> returning from battle. Free entry! Our alcohol… doesn't get you drunk!
> I cannot defend my right to work, as a shoe polisher by the sidewalks,
> because my clients have the right to consider me a shoe thief – this
> is what a University professor told me!
>
> "The stranger and I will join forces against my cousin. My cousin and
> I will join forces against my brother. My Sheikh and I will join
> forces against me." This is the first lesson in the new national
> education curriculum. In the abyss of darkness, who will go to heaven
> first? He who died with enemy bullets or he who died by his brother's
> bullets? Some jurisprudents say: Thou shalt have an enemy born from
> your mother's womb! The fundamentalists do not annoy me; their secular
> supporters infuriate me, as do their atheist supporters who only
> believe in one religion: their images on TV! He asked me: Can a hungry
> guard defend a house whose owner has traveled to spend his summer
> vacation in the French or Italian Riviera… whichever one? I said: No
> he doesn't! And he asked: does myself + myself = two? I said: you and
> you equal less than one!
>
> I am not ashamed of my identity, it is still under construction. But I
> am ashamed of some of what is written in the Ibn Khaldoun
> introduction: You, as of now, are someone else!
>
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>



--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk