The Baghdad Blues

by Sinan Antoon

Poetry. THE BAGHDAD BLUES presents documentary filmmaker/co-creator of About Baghdad, Sinan Antoon's first poems in English. Antoon studied in Baghdad and moved to the States after the Gulf War. Since then, Sinan Antoon completed his dissertation at Harvard, has taught Arabic and literature at Dartmouth and NYU, and has a novella just published by City Lights. Antoon's poems--many of them published in Banipal (London) and Across Borders, as well as anthologized--are not quite the thin trails they would appear to be. Antoon's line, although lyrical, is packed with the absence and fury which ought to make us shake a fist at the skies. If it were only the sky's fault.

Genres: Poetry, Middle East

52 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

سنان أنطون
شاعر وروائي وأكاديمي ولد في بغداد عام ١٩٦٧. حصل على بكالوريوس في الأدب الإنكليزي من جامعة بغداد. هاجر بعد حرب الخليج ١٩٩١ إلى الولايات المتحدة حيث أكمل دراساته وحصل على الماجستير من جامعة جورجتاون عام ١٩٩٥ والدكتوراه في الأدب العربي من جامعة هارڤارد بامتياز عام ٢٠٠٦.
نشر روايته الأولى"إعجام" عام ٢٠٠٣ وتُرجمت إلى الإنكليزية والنرويجية والبرتغالية والألمانية والإيطالية . نشر روايته الثانية "وحدها شجرة الرمان" عام ٢٠١٠ وترجمها بنفسه إلى الإنكليزية وفازت الترجمة بجائزة بانيبال-سيف غباش عام ٢٠١٥ لأفضل ترجمة أدبية من العربية. نشر روايته الثالثة "يا مريم" عام ٢٠١٢ ووصلت إلى القائمة القصيرة للجائزة العالمية للرواية العربية. وصدرت ترجمتها الإسبانية عام عن دار نشر ترنر في مدريد عام ٢٠١٤. صدرت روايته الرابعة "فهرس" في بداية عام ٢٠١٦. له مجموعتان شعريتان: "موشور مبلل بالحروب" (ميريت، القاهرة، ٢٠٠٤) و "ليل واحد في كل المدن" (دار الجمل، بيروت، ٢٠١٠). صدرت ترجمة لأشعاره بالإنكليزية عن دار هاربر ماونتن برس عام ٢٠٠٧ بعنوان .The Baghdad Blues وترجم شعره إلى الإيطالية والألمانية والتركية والإسبانية والهندية. أخرج فلماً وثائقياً عن العراق بعد الغزو بعنوان About Baghdad (حول بغداد) صوّر في بغداد في تموز، عام ٢٠٠٣.
ترجم أكثر من مئتي قصيدة من الشعر العربي الحديث إلى الإنكليزية ورُشِحَت ترجمته لقصائد محمود درويش لجائزة بين Pen للترجمة عام ٢٠٠٤. ترجم "في حضرة الغياب" لمحمود درويش إلى الإنكليزية (دار آرشيبيلاغو، ٢٠١١) وفازت الترجمة بجائزة أفضل ترجمة أدبية في الولايات المتحدة وكندا من جمعية المترجمين الأدبيين لذلك العام. كما ترجم مختارات من أشعار سعدي يوسف صدرت بعنوان "أيهذا الحنين يا عدوي" (دار غريوولف، ٢٠١٢). عمل أستاذا للأدب العربي في كلية دارتموث في ٢٠٠٣-٢٠٠٥، و يعمل أستاذاً للأدب العربي في جامعة نيويورك منذ عام ٢٠٠٥. نشر العديد من المقالات والدراسات الأكاديمية عن الشعر العربي الحديث.

Sinan Antoon is a poet, novelist and translator. His poems and essays (in Arabic) have appeared in as-Safir, al-Adab, al-Akhbar, Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya, Masharef and (in English) in The Nation, Middle East Report, Al-Ahram Weekly, Banipal, Journal of Palestine Studies, The Massachusetts Review, World Literature Today, Ploughshares, Washington Square Journal, and the New York Times.

He has published two collections of poetry; Mawshur Muballal bil-Hurub (Cairo, 2003) and Laylun Wahidun fi Kull al-Mudun (One Night in All Cities) (Beirut/Baghdad: Dar al-Jamal, 2010). His novels include I`jaam (2003), which has been translated into English as I`jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody (City Lights, 2006) as well as Norwegian, German, Portuguese, and Italian, Wahdaha Shajarat al-Rumman (The Pomegranate Alone) (Beirut: al-Mu'assassa al-`Arabiyya, 2010), forthcoming from Yale University Press in Spring 2013 as The Corpse Washer, and Ya Maryam (Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2012). His translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s last prose book In the Presence of Absence, was published by Archipelago Books in 2011 and won the 2012 National Translation Award given by the American LIterary Translators Association (ALTA). His co-translation (with Peter Money) of a selection of Saadi Youssef's late poetry was published by Graywolf in November 2012.

Sinan is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the Arab Studies Journal. He is an associate professor at the Gallatin School, New York University and co-founder and co-editor of the cultural page of Jadaliyya.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

your voice floats
on the evening’s water
like a sleepy narcissus
and I am a shore
thinking of drowning
*
the strings of the lute
pull my soul
from the well of silence
fill my heart
with the sea’s blueness
storm my branches
pluck me
scattering me far away
on an island
outside time
inside my heart
*
addressing a silent orchestra
in a distant morning
the maestro cannot read
the foggy lines
butterflies bloom
from your vocal cords
and colonize my memory
*
the sea rests its head
on the horizon’s pillow
and takes a siesta
I can hear its blueness
breathing
whenever the sun’s fingertips
kiss its skin
the sky gets jealous

[Arnoldo Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am currently reading The Baghdad Blues as part of pile of books on war. I am doing this as part of a manuscript of poetry and analysis of the Iraq war and occupation. War is a continuation of neoliberalism by other means, private and publicly-privately funded wars and policies.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a powerful book of poetry by an Iraqi poet - expressing his revulsion at war, as well as loss of a loved one. It contains both anti-war and love poems. Unfortunately, the seemingly unending war was only one year in when this book was published. He wrote of the present era as being 2 1/2 wars in (Iran/Iraq war, Gulf War, 2003 Invasion of Iraq). I was very impressed by the poet's taut, powerful poems and shall look for more books of poetry by Professor Antoon.

Here are some I especially liked:

"sleeplessness
is my pillow
a pillow hiding
thousand of birds
whose quills crowd my head
each one inscribing
my insomnia
the night is ink"

And:

"My heart is a stork
perched on a distant dome
in Baghdad
its nest made of bones
its sky
of death"

And:

"The grave is a mirror
into which the child looks
and dreams:
when will I grow up
and be like my father
...
dead"

And:

"this umbilical cord
extends from my heart
to the banks of the Euphrates
I sever it every morning
but, at night,
nostalgia
mends it"

And:

"the sobbing of a man
as he clings to the thread
running from his fingers
towards a white kite
still soaring
in the skies of his childhood
outside the cell
on his execution night"

As the reader can see, these are very powerful, very fine poems. The book would be of interest to anyone who wishes to read some excellent poetry, which also conveys one individual's insight into the horrors of seeming never-ending conflict.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2007 by small press Harbor Mountain Press, The Baghdad Blues by Sinan Antoon is a collection of poems that straddles the line between war and peace with war. The narrator uncovers the emptiness of loss beneath the hard exterior of those consumed by the act of war, while at the same time drawing line in the sand to call out the enemy. Each line is carefully selected for its subtle power, which can only be unleashed by an unexpected turn in the poem or in a stanza.

From "Wrinkles; on the wind's forehead" (page 23-8)

3

the wind was tired
from carrying the coffins
and leaned
against a palm tree . . .

6

My heart is a stork
perched on a distant dome
in Baghdad
it's nest made of bones . . .

12

the Tigris and Euphrates
are two strings
in death's lute
and we are songs
or fingers strumming

The collection is divided into four parts, with Phantasmagoria II containing the most poems. Phantasmagoria, according to Wikipedia, "was a form of theater which used a modified magic lantern to project frightening images such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts onto walls, smoke, or semi-transparent screens, frequently using rear projection. The projector was mobile, allowing the projected image to move and change size on the screen, and multiple projecting devices allowed for quick switching of different images." "A Photograph" is the most illustrative of phantasmagoria in that as the narrator unfolds the image of a photograph seen in the New York Times of a young boy in Baghdad, the true horror of the event comes to life and leaps off the page through the carefully chosen, yet sparse language used by Antoon.


Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/05/t...

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Both books I've read by Antoon (the other was his novel, I'jaam) seem to have lost something in translation. Since there is no translation credit on this volume, I assume that these poems were either written in English or translated from Arabic by the author. The language often has the ring of a too-literal translation, which sometimes leads to cliched imagery and lifeless metaphors. That said, there are important moments of insight, and these poems certainly capture a point of view not often represented in contemporary literature in English. The long poem "String" rescued the collection for me.

[Kaisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

These short desolate poems of war and devastation, often seen through children's eyes ("when will I grow up and be like my father...dead") are lightened occasionally by little appreciative meditation on breasts, love and wind.