Your cart is currently empty!
Two Poems: Arabic, between Love and War
Arabic, between Love and War (trace press), edited by Yasmine Haj and Norah Alkharashi, juxtaposes modern and contemporary poems from Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia and their diasporas, alongside their translations into English (and some from English into Arabic). Many of these poems have been translated into English for the first time, and remind us of Arabic’s lyricism, poetic range, and beauty.
Read the poems “A Lonely Man Walks on the Bridge by Samar Diab, translated from Arabic by Nofel; and “Their Blood” by Ibrahim Nasrallah, translated by Eman Abukhadra.
Two Poems from Arabic, between Love and War
edited by Yasmine Haj and Norah Alkharashi
A Lonely Man Walks on the Bridge by Samar Diab
Translated from Arabic by Nofel
He was recounting his story to a beautiful woman at his house.
He said:
I used to walk alone on the bridge a lot
thinking of a cold bird
with cold feathers and cold eyes
dying in front of the window.
I used to smile like a rift in the wind, blowing fall to the living
and summer to the dead
and I used to weep like empty shoes.
I thought a lot about the womb in which I lived a joyous life
where no wind takes off my hat
where no one knocks on the door
and I wished to return to curl up there,
me and my hat and my dog and the hot tea pot.
I used to walk alone without lust, without memory,
without flinching at the train trampling the lake
or a homeless person stealing from me.
I used to reach the end of the bridge and then return
and think on the way back:
Why does my heart sting this much,
I, who want nothing?
Sign up for monthly poetry!
The There’s a (monthly) poem for that newsletter releases at the end of every month, with a featured poem delivered right to your inbox. Better yet: if you love the poem, you get a subscriber-exclusive discount to the collection.
Their Blood by Ibrahim Nasrallah
Translated from Arabic by Eman Abukhadra
Their blood is good morning,
their blood is good night.
It is their greeting…their message to us
their tale…and their fear for us.
Their blood is their mosques… their churches,
windows to their homes,
their love and their anger,
a piercing reproach,
a scandalous space,
a mother’s tale to her children,
a rose’s message to its nectar,
their land’s birds and its winds.
Their blood is their battles … and their truce,
their quip, should the invaders storm in.
It is an arm for their prayers
and a prayer is their blood.
They left no trees to reproach them,
nor a moon over their balconies,
nor a song thirsty for their rivers.
They broke no wish dwelling in their children’s eyes,
nor the spirit of olive trees over their hills.
They are friends of the sea,
friends of the river,
the eyes of olive trees,
the anemone flower,
the greenness of trees,
and the childhood of rivers.
They are a Mecca for poets
and a reserve for the poor,
a road at dawn,
a laugh within the rocks,
and the clarity of this secret.
Their blood is good morning,
their blood is good night.
* * *
Samar Diab is a Lebanese poet residing in Spain. She is the author of three poetry collections, There is a Fight Outside (2010), Museum of Objects and Creatures (2012), and I Write Colourful Poems (2021).
Ibrahim Nasrallah is a Palestinian poet, novelist, professor, painter, and photographer. He was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan to parents evicted from their land in Al-Burayj, Palestine in 1948. He has written fifteen poetry collections and twenty-two novels and received several prizes for his work, including the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and the Katara prize. His writing has been translated into English, Spanish, Danish, Turkish, and Persian.
Nofel is a Montréal based poet and essayist, writing in English and Arabic. His writing was
longlisted for the CBC 2022 Nonfiction Prize, and his poems have been published widely and appear in El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Collection of Oddities (Metonymy, 2024).
Eman Abukhadra is a Jordanian Canadian translator, interpreter, and poet of Palestinian origin. She holds a BA in Modern Languages and Literature and works between English, German, and Arabic. She translates poetry and other literary genres and has a particular interest in Palestinian, North African, and female voices.
* * *
To purchase a copy of Arabic, between Love and War from us or your favourite indie bookstore, click here.
For more from Two Poems, click here.
