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Exhausted on the Cross
A much-anticipated follow-up to Nothing More to Lose, this is only the second poetry collection translated into English from a vital voice of the Arab world.
From a foremost contemporary Arab poet comes a book of deep poetic sensitivity, power, wit, and existential self-questioning. In a second major book to have been translated into English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, following the critically acclaimed Nothing More to Lose, the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish takes the reader on a dizzying journey across histories, cultures, and geographies. With Haifa and Jerusalem as its anchoring points, Exhausted on the Cross takes us from the grime of modern-day Shatila to the opulence of medieval Baghdad, from the gardens of Samarkand to the open-air prison that is Gaza. We join the Persian poet Hafez in the conquered city of Shiraz, and we converse with the Prophet Mohammad in Medina. In this eagerly awaited book from a poet with broad international appeal the universal themes of death, creation, human struggle, oppression, and tragedy come into sharp and intensely personal focus.
From a foremost contemporary Arab poet comes a book of deep poetic sensitivity, power, wit, and existential self-questioning. In a second major book to have been translated into English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, following the critically acclaimed Nothing More to Lose, the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish takes the reader on a dizzying journey across histories, cultures, and geographies. With Haifa and Jerusalem as its anchoring points, Exhausted on the Cross takes us from the grime of modern-day Shatila to the opulence of medieval Baghdad, from the gardens of Samarkand to the open-air prison that is Gaza. We join the Persian poet Hafez in the conquered city of Shiraz, and we converse with the Prophet Mohammad in Medina. In this eagerly awaited book from a poet with broad international appeal the universal themes of death, creation, human struggle, oppression, and tragedy come into sharp and intensely personal focus.
144 pages, Paperback
First published February 23, 2021
10 people are currently reading
451 people want to read
About the author
Najwan Darwish
20 books39 followersNajwan Darwish; born December 8, 1978 in Jerusalem, is an Arabic-language poet. The New York Review of Books has described him as "one of the foremost Arabic-language poets of his generation". In 2014, NPR included his book Nothing More To Lose as one of the best books of the year.
Besides being a prominent poet, Darwish is a leading cultural editor in the Arab world. He has played an important role in developing Arabic cultural journalism by co-founding independent magazines and mainstream daily newspapers, as well as being a sharp critic.He was the chief editor of Min Wa Ila (From/To) Magazine in Palestine,and the cultural critic for Al Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon from 2006 to 2012, amongst other key positions in cultural journalism. In 2014 he became the founding chief editor of the cultural section of Al Araby Al Jadeed (The New Arab), a major pan-Arab daily newspaper based in London.
Darwish is active in diverse media, culture and art projects in Palestine and the Arab world. He was the literary advisor of MASARAT Palestine, the Palestinian Cultural and Artistic Year in Belgium (2007-2008) alongside the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who was the head of the committee. He is the literary advisor to the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest).
Darwish is a speaker and lecturer. Past lectures include "The Sexual Image of Israel in the Arab Imagination" at Homeworks (Beirut, 2008) and "To Be a Palestinian Intellectual After Oslo" at the House of Culture (Oslo, 2009).
Besides being a prominent poet, Darwish is a leading cultural editor in the Arab world. He has played an important role in developing Arabic cultural journalism by co-founding independent magazines and mainstream daily newspapers, as well as being a sharp critic.He was the chief editor of Min Wa Ila (From/To) Magazine in Palestine,and the cultural critic for Al Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon from 2006 to 2012, amongst other key positions in cultural journalism. In 2014 he became the founding chief editor of the cultural section of Al Araby Al Jadeed (The New Arab), a major pan-Arab daily newspaper based in London.
Darwish is active in diverse media, culture and art projects in Palestine and the Arab world. He was the literary advisor of MASARAT Palestine, the Palestinian Cultural and Artistic Year in Belgium (2007-2008) alongside the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish who was the head of the committee. He is the literary advisor to the Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest).
Darwish is a speaker and lecturer. Past lectures include "The Sexual Image of Israel in the Arab Imagination" at Homeworks (Beirut, 2008) and "To Be a Palestinian Intellectual After Oslo" at the House of Culture (Oslo, 2009).
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
August 31, 2025
"Si pudiera volver,
no lo haría bajo ningún otro estandarte.
Te abrazaría aun
con las manos mutiladas.
No quiero alas en el paraíso.
Sólo quiero tus tumbas a orillas del río.
Quiero la eternidad en la mesa del desayuno
con el pan y el aceite.
Tan sólo te quiero a ti,
tierra,
mi derrotado estandarte."
Una antología preciosa con un bonito prólogo, donde el tiempo deja de existir, y existimos todos, en la eternidad, a la vez; donde "la muerte no es más que un sirviente encargado de recoger las copas y limpiar las mesas"; donde el nombre del animal que pierde la seguridad en sus piernas cambia en el poema "y se convierte en la presa"; donde se espera la llegada de un día "en los giros de las pesadillas", y un niño espera que abran el mar de Gaza. Uno se encuentra a sí mismo limpiándose de las mejillas las lágrimas de su abuela; el condenado no es ahorcado, pues lo condenan al amor, y a los ladrones no se les puede ni llamar así: se les escucha, durmiendo desde la sombra, mientras nos crucifican al sol del mediodía.
"Un hombre cuya sustancia es la temporalidad
no puede lamentar una montaña,
pero me arriesgaré
y escribiré una elegía para ti.
Arriesgaré mi temporalidad,
arriesgaré el hecho de que resistirás
mientras mis palabras se desmoronan y decaen.
No tengo trucos bajo la manga,
esta locura es común entre mi gente.
Nos llevaron con un soplo al exilio,
pero todavía pensamos que somos montañas:
montañas inmóviles por el viento."
"La última vez que escribí un poema
fue hace tres mil años,
Yo era entonces un soldado encubierto en una guerra
que ignoraba que había acabado.
Ahora de nuevo intento escribir,
pero el polvo de los años es como el de los sepulcros.
Así broto de la tierra como semilla que germina,
como un capullo que se despliega en la rama,
como los muertos que se esparcen en una tierra
donde solo habita la muerte."
no lo haría bajo ningún otro estandarte.
Te abrazaría aun
con las manos mutiladas.
No quiero alas en el paraíso.
Sólo quiero tus tumbas a orillas del río.
Quiero la eternidad en la mesa del desayuno
con el pan y el aceite.
Tan sólo te quiero a ti,
tierra,
mi derrotado estandarte."
Una antología preciosa con un bonito prólogo, donde el tiempo deja de existir, y existimos todos, en la eternidad, a la vez; donde "la muerte no es más que un sirviente encargado de recoger las copas y limpiar las mesas"; donde el nombre del animal que pierde la seguridad en sus piernas cambia en el poema "y se convierte en la presa"; donde se espera la llegada de un día "en los giros de las pesadillas", y un niño espera que abran el mar de Gaza. Uno se encuentra a sí mismo limpiándose de las mejillas las lágrimas de su abuela; el condenado no es ahorcado, pues lo condenan al amor, y a los ladrones no se les puede ni llamar así: se les escucha, durmiendo desde la sombra, mientras nos crucifican al sol del mediodía.
"Un hombre cuya sustancia es la temporalidad
no puede lamentar una montaña,
pero me arriesgaré
y escribiré una elegía para ti.
Arriesgaré mi temporalidad,
arriesgaré el hecho de que resistirás
mientras mis palabras se desmoronan y decaen.
No tengo trucos bajo la manga,
esta locura es común entre mi gente.
Nos llevaron con un soplo al exilio,
pero todavía pensamos que somos montañas:
montañas inmóviles por el viento."
"La última vez que escribí un poema
fue hace tres mil años,
Yo era entonces un soldado encubierto en una guerra
que ignoraba que había acabado.
Ahora de nuevo intento escribir,
pero el polvo de los años es como el de los sepulcros.
Así broto de la tierra como semilla que germina,
como un capullo que se despliega en la rama,
como los muertos que se esparcen en una tierra
donde solo habita la muerte."
January 20, 2022
"Pass it to me, I said.
I want to make long and delicate incisions
in which these gathering clouds can sleep—
they're hoarding up fatigue
as they travel from one end of themselves
to the other. Pass me this hazy bit of sky
hung
above a sea that's been dead since forever,
though no one knew it.
Pass me this pit in the earth
from which the singing of a hopeless people rises.
Enter the next room
and pass me my death."
// Pass It
The second collection of Darwish to come out in English has been ably translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid just like the first. He says, "the intensity [of Nothing More to Lose] has merged with a certain weariness of spirit—the tedium of an endless occupation, but also suffering inherent in the human condition itself." The crucifixion is a painful moment stretched out to eternity, and the "cross is raised with every dawn." This kind of existence is full of malaise, a lot like the sea at their backs: "hope embroidered with despair, / despair distilled from hope." The rest in their sight is not an end of hostilities, but the release of death.
Still, to colour the collection as solely bleak is a mistake for the poetic voice announces: "I milk hope from the udders / of this black goat you name despair / and learn to wait." Even the prospect of eventual freedom, the expansive anticipation of the chains coming off, is like a torch burning through the dark night. It is not a life of sorrow only, and they shout their defiance when asked why they continue to resist in such a wretched state: "We're still able to respond, / and we're still smiling / and laughing / and taking you unawares, / you— / the defeated entourage." It just takes "a single downpour, / a single song."
(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
I want to make long and delicate incisions
in which these gathering clouds can sleep—
they're hoarding up fatigue
as they travel from one end of themselves
to the other. Pass me this hazy bit of sky
hung
above a sea that's been dead since forever,
though no one knew it.
Pass me this pit in the earth
from which the singing of a hopeless people rises.
Enter the next room
and pass me my death."
// Pass It
The second collection of Darwish to come out in English has been ably translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid just like the first. He says, "the intensity [of Nothing More to Lose] has merged with a certain weariness of spirit—the tedium of an endless occupation, but also suffering inherent in the human condition itself." The crucifixion is a painful moment stretched out to eternity, and the "cross is raised with every dawn." This kind of existence is full of malaise, a lot like the sea at their backs: "hope embroidered with despair, / despair distilled from hope." The rest in their sight is not an end of hostilities, but the release of death.
Still, to colour the collection as solely bleak is a mistake for the poetic voice announces: "I milk hope from the udders / of this black goat you name despair / and learn to wait." Even the prospect of eventual freedom, the expansive anticipation of the chains coming off, is like a torch burning through the dark night. It is not a life of sorrow only, and they shout their defiance when asked why they continue to resist in such a wretched state: "We're still able to respond, / and we're still smiling / and laughing / and taking you unawares, / you— / the defeated entourage." It just takes "a single downpour, / a single song."
(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
May 25, 2024
“We were blown into exile
but we still think we’re mountains -
mountains unmoved by the wind.”
but we still think we’re mountains -
mountains unmoved by the wind.”
February 20, 2021
What a wonderful read? Made me fall in love all over again with middle east literature.
Each poem and story is deep, intense and thought provoking.
The craft by the poet is so beautiful.
A must read!
Each poem and story is deep, intense and thought provoking.
The craft by the poet is so beautiful.
A must read!
November 22, 2022
The verses in this collection are pure love for a land and its traditions, admiration for a people and their resistance, melancholy for what has been carried away.
Simply magnificent
-------------------------------------------------------------
In Shatila
“There’s no dignity here,”
the old woman tells you,
the one who left Haifa when she was nine months old.
She’s sixty-five now
and standing in the swelter
outside her “house” in the camp.
She says it all
in just a couple of seconds.
She says it all
in just four words.
Rivers of regret,
years of agony that drown
in just four words.
You look at her bent back and think of the pines on Mount Carmel.
You look into her eyes and remember the kindness of the coast
while she complains to you about the faucets
and the brackish water that comes out of them.
And all you can do is smile as you open your heart
to this lovesick child.
You know you won’t see her again:
She won’t be there
when you head back to Haifa.
What did she tell you as she said her goodbyes?
What did you promise her as you said yours?
How could you smile, indifferent
to the brackish water of the sea
while the barbed wire wrapped around your heart?
How could you,
you son of a bitch?
Simply magnificent
-------------------------------------------------------------
In Shatila
“There’s no dignity here,”
the old woman tells you,
the one who left Haifa when she was nine months old.
She’s sixty-five now
and standing in the swelter
outside her “house” in the camp.
She says it all
in just a couple of seconds.
She says it all
in just four words.
Rivers of regret,
years of agony that drown
in just four words.
You look at her bent back and think of the pines on Mount Carmel.
You look into her eyes and remember the kindness of the coast
while she complains to you about the faucets
and the brackish water that comes out of them.
And all you can do is smile as you open your heart
to this lovesick child.
You know you won’t see her again:
She won’t be there
when you head back to Haifa.
What did she tell you as she said her goodbyes?
What did you promise her as you said yours?
How could you smile, indifferent
to the brackish water of the sea
while the barbed wire wrapped around your heart?
How could you,
you son of a bitch?
November 14, 2023
Beautiful and unfortunately timely collection. Broken into different sections (which were rearranged in translation), with the first section being most stylistically different from the others. In the first section, the poems are longer, and set the most 'concrete' landscape/context for Darwish's poetry. The poems reference specific locations (Mount Carmel, Shatila [a neighborhood in Haifa], Shiraz, etc), and call up certain historical poetic figures, like Muhammad Taha Ali, Hafez, and various Arabophone poets from the classical period. In the subsequent sections, the poems become shorter, and tend to be more vague, using more 'universally accessible' language. A common theme throughout is (as the title indicates) exhaustion. Darwish expresses his fatigue at being part of a Palestinian collective that has been incessantly under siege, threatened with erasure. He also seems to include other, non-Palestinian people, within that sense of exhaustion/oppression (Nepalese and South Asian migrant workers, the more general human 'man'). I got annoyed at his binaristic thinking around gender throughout.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 16, 2024
I regret not having read this sooner. This poetry collection is a work of art. Najwan Darwish will be, if not already, one of the poets of our times whose works will be (again, if not already) deemed as classics.
I'll leave here some snippets that have touched me deeply:
I don't want wings in paradise / I just want your graves by the river. / I want eternity at the breakfast table / with the bread and oil.
People are simply people. / Peel off the languages, and all you'll find / is women and men. / But who would I have been without my words?
The workers are washing their faces with cold water, / with the darkness and the dawn, / while we go on believing, Lord, that suffering / is your gift to us. / One day we'll come to you meekly: / Give us back the years of misery, / give us back / even the lies we told ourselves.
And I'm not even gonna mention how achingly beautiful each of his poems when he wrote & dedicated it to someone. I am convinced that it must be an enormous honour to have THE Najwan Darwish dedicate a poem to you.
I'll leave here some snippets that have touched me deeply:
I don't want wings in paradise / I just want your graves by the river. / I want eternity at the breakfast table / with the bread and oil.
People are simply people. / Peel off the languages, and all you'll find / is women and men. / But who would I have been without my words?
The workers are washing their faces with cold water, / with the darkness and the dawn, / while we go on believing, Lord, that suffering / is your gift to us. / One day we'll come to you meekly: / Give us back the years of misery, / give us back / even the lies we told ourselves.
And I'm not even gonna mention how achingly beautiful each of his poems when he wrote & dedicated it to someone. I am convinced that it must be an enormous honour to have THE Najwan Darwish dedicate a poem to you.
November 13, 2023
"If I could come back,
I wouldn't come back under any other banner.
I'd still embrace you
with two severed hands.
I don't want wings in paradise,
I just want your graves by the river.
I want eternity at the breakfast table
with the bread and the oil.
I want /you/--
earth,
my defeated banner."
this one poem says it all better than i ever could. the whole collection is so arresting in its grief and its sustained hope throughout it all...!!
I wouldn't come back under any other banner.
I'd still embrace you
with two severed hands.
I don't want wings in paradise,
I just want your graves by the river.
I want eternity at the breakfast table
with the bread and the oil.
I want /you/--
earth,
my defeated banner."
this one poem says it all better than i ever could. the whole collection is so arresting in its grief and its sustained hope throughout it all...!!
December 18, 2025
A tender collection of poetry from beloved Palestinian writer Najwan Darwish. Despite the small size of many of these poems, each one packs a punch harder than the last as the collection seeks to explore the meaning of humanity under such an inhumane occupation. My favorites from this collection include "The Appearances of Taha Mohammad Ali," "The Instrument," "78," and "My Defeated Banner." I'm looking forward to checking out more of Darwish's poetry very soon.
December 23, 2022
Another book I had to read for class but really enjoyed. A poetry collection by a Palestinian author that explores lots of complex themes and emotions. The only reason I give it 4 and not 5 stars is after our class discussion I appreciated it a lot more. However without the class discussion there are some themes and references that went over my head.
February 28, 2023
What better way to encompass tragedy, grief, loss, resilience, and melancholy, then through the beautiful art form of poetry? Each poem of Darwish's piece draws the reader in - with every page, a new story, a new voice, a new emotion is to be told. You want to understand the Palestinian experience, away from all the cameras and Western media and colonial thought? Read this novel.
November 12, 2022
"Night's content with its skewed vision,
day's a blind man hurling prophecies."
(from "As for These")
“The ones hanging
are tired,
so bring us down
and give us some rest.”
(from “Exhausted on the Cross”)
"I'm indebted to death
for canceling all my debts."
(from "Indebted")
day's a blind man hurling prophecies."
(from "As for These")
“The ones hanging
are tired,
so bring us down
and give us some rest.”
(from “Exhausted on the Cross”)
"I'm indebted to death
for canceling all my debts."
(from "Indebted")
November 11, 2023
The sleeper in the stone
This saint sleeping in the stone
Enchants me:
Like him, I want to sleep
And have an image made of me
Sunk in his polished slumber,
He can't recall his mother the stone
Or the chisel who fathered him.
This saint sleeping in the stone
Enchants me:
Like him, I want to sleep
And have an image made of me
Sunk in his polished slumber,
He can't recall his mother the stone
Or the chisel who fathered him.
February 20, 2025
Excruciatingly enchanting, the lines in this work oscillate between despair and hope, frustration and anger. Each one weaves its own narrative, pulling us into a vivid emotional landscape and transporting us to the heart of its setting.
March 7, 2021
A Palestinian born in Jerusalem in 1978, Darwish’s poems describe Pan-Arab experiences in terms of both their shared humanity with the rest of the world and as specifically Arab experiences—the twists that make the experiences uniquely theirs.
“We were born into exile,” he writes in “To Lament a Mountain,” “but we still think we’re mountains— / mountains unmoved by the wind.” And those unmoved mountains are fond of recalling the voice of Warda, an Algerian-born singer of Egyptian songs:
Her voice has the look of a man condemned,
who walks to the gallows willingly
but is not hanged.
Instead they tell him, “Go now.
Your punishment is love.”
—from “Imagine Someone”
Imagine those melodies as poems.
“We were born into exile,” he writes in “To Lament a Mountain,” “but we still think we’re mountains— / mountains unmoved by the wind.” And those unmoved mountains are fond of recalling the voice of Warda, an Algerian-born singer of Egyptian songs:
Her voice has the look of a man condemned,
who walks to the gallows willingly
but is not hanged.
Instead they tell him, “Go now.
Your punishment is love.”
—from “Imagine Someone”
Imagine those melodies as poems.
March 5, 2021
Najwan Darwish’s Poetry of the Unspeakable
By Raúl Zurita February 18, 2021
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
By Raúl Zurita February 18, 2021
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
January 3, 2023
u can tell najwan thinks he’s a ghost (maybe he is right, who am i to say?)
November 17, 2023
You've read enough theory. Free Palestine.
Read poems "A Story for Shiraz" and "Because of a Woman."
Read poems "A Story for Shiraz" and "Because of a Woman."
November 23, 2023
⭐4.5 "I’m embarrassed by how the grass on your grave doesn’t know you."
May 13, 2024
I name it earth, and am not ashamed. (117)
Read
July 16, 2024“lord, sharpen your knife and give your sacrifice its rest”
November 18, 2024
love longform poetry!!
also his takes on palestine are so important to hear out
(very happily surprised that zurtia wrote the foreword)
also his takes on palestine are so important to hear out
(very happily surprised that zurtia wrote the foreword)
January 21, 2025
Gorgeous collection of poetry, concerned with the contemporary but expertly using history and poetic legacies to add to its immediacy.
December 1, 2023
An exhausted despair pervades many of these poems, but this collections is in no way one-note— sparkling moments of humor and warm rememberances give the reader a little room to breathe. Overall a very strong collection.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews