Mahmoud Darwish, "I Don't Want This Poem to End"

[Betty]

Thoughts about Mohammad Shaheen's "Translation Reflections"

He's the person on the right in the frontal photograph. It seems appropriate that he is the translator of this volume because Darwish, in his lifetime, liked Shaheen's results in the translation of Arabic, if he were going to allow a translation into other languages at all. There probably was some friendly persuasion as well.
During Darwish's earlier and burdened days, Denys Johnson-Davies translated and saw in his work more than a 'poet of the resistance' and more likely a continuation of Arabic heritage, especially as he continued to write. Johnson-Davies also countered critics, supporting Darwish's decision to exile, bringing Palestine as it had been with him. He also endorsed Darwish's theory of poetry, specifically to 'humanize poetry.'.

"...We know that Mahmoud Darwish wrote with the desire to liberate poetry from its sociological and political context..."

Next is Elias Khoury's 'Introduction.'

[Betty]

Thoughts on Elias Khoury's 'Introduction: the story of the last collection of poems'

Khoury describes a detective story over a few days, relating how he, a lawyer, Darwish's brother, and others, after Darwish's death, searched his home in Amman for the remaining manuscripts, arranging, paginating, photocopying, and reading what they found. On the following day, more searchers informed them of further discoveries of poetry with notations, some ready, some less ready for publication. Someone had also found the actual item of their efforts.

"I found myself in the presence of a great poetic work, a poem of near-epic stature, the ultimate lyricism that Darwish had contrived. With it were five new poems."

Khoury details the contents of this good copy of his last work, "I Don't Want This Poem to End" and of accompanying ones. The writings Darwish had not wished to publish went to his archive in the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah. An AP archive video with a description shown underneath takes the visitor through some of its displays https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16cw9...

[Sue]

Thanks for this Asma

[Betty]

Sue wrote: "Thanks for this Asma"

Of course, Sue. Glad to do it!

[James]

My review:

This anthology, the book I read for the Goodreads World Literature group that is reading Arabic literature in translation this year, contains three collections of Mahmoud Darwish's poetry translated by Mohammed Shaheen, and some additional matter in the back, most importantly his essay "On Exile" which I think is very important for the understanding of how his poetry evolved over time. The three collections represent three different phases of his writing, although I think the subtitle is somewhat misleading. The first collection, The End of Night (1967), is from his earlier period, when he still lived as an "internal exile" in Palestine, and the earliest poetry I have read by him, but from what I have read about him it is already in a more mature poetic style than his first few collections (the earliest is from 1960) which were apparently more directly political without much poetic sophistication, although I would love to read some of them. The second collection, It is a Song, It is a Song is not really early or late, but belongs to his "middle" period when he was in exile in Lebanon, Tunis, and France, and the third collection, I Don't Want This Poem to End was put together posthumously, after the establishment of the "Palestinian Authority" when he divided his time between Ramallah in the PA and Amman (the Introduction by Elias Khoury explains how the poems were found and edited after his death.)

Darwish is widely regarded as the "National Poet of Palestine"; a young child at the time of the Nakba, his entire life was spent in internal or external exile, and his poetic work is imbued with the ideas of resistance, exile, and return, although the forms in which he envisioned them changed over time. (I should apologize for one comment I made in my review of Alshaer's anthology of writings on the Nakba, where, mislead by Alshaer's introduction and not yet knowing much about Darwish, I attributed to him the statement that the Israelis should go home and give the land back. Actually, he explained that the one poem in which he said something like that was referring to the territories seized in 1967 and not to Palestine as a whole, and because of the misunderstanding he never included that poem in any of his collections or allowed it to be anthologized.) Darwish always clearly focused his fire on the Zionist enterprise of establishing an exclusively Jewish state in Palestine, and unlike some of the dubious supporters of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world (and elsewhere) never descended into anti-Semitism or ethnic or religious hatred, which he considered the characteristics of the enemy, and refused to dehumanize Israeli Jews. He attributed his knowledge of literature to a Jewish teacher, and pointed out that his early political activity in the Israeli Communist Party was side by side with Jewish comrades. This is exemplified by two of the best poems (and the most criticized by extremists) in The End of Night. One is "Rita and the Rifle", about his Israeli Jewish lover (a comrade from that time; apparently they lived together for a couple years, but of course marriages between Jews and non-Jews were not allowed by the Zionist government, an example of their apartheid mentality.) Some critics think that much of his anonymous love poetry is actually about Rita, although he did have two short-lived marriages. The other is "A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies" about an Israeli soldier who admits to committing atrocities and just wants to go home. (The Israeli military has always had problems with soldiers who resist committing war-crimes.) In fact, the soldier was Shlomo Sand, who later became a famous historian who undermined the "historical" justification for Zionism in his book The Invention of the Jewish People.

All three collections are about exile, but the second and third collection have a somewhat wider focus; the second collection seemed a bit more disillusioned, more about coming to terms with an extended exile, and the third collection is concerned also with personal death; there is also more about poetry as such, and about love. This is some of the best poetry I have ever read.

[James]

If people want to read more of Darwish, three of his books (all from the later period) are available for borrowing from Open Library: Almond Blossoms and Beyond, also translated by Shaheen, In the Presence of Absence (a prose memoir with some poems) and A River Dies of Thirst (poems and prose poems) which was the last collection he actually prepared for publication. All are tremendous.

[Sue]

Thanks for your review James. I read some of Darwish’s poetry a few years ago but don’t recall the title of the collection. Your background information is very interesting and helpful. I just checked and can get one ebook through the Boston Public Library. Not sure when but I will add it.

[Betty]

James wrote: "...his essay "On Exile" which I think is very important for the understanding of how his poetry evolved..."

External exile is the subject of a Darwish poem read by Denis O'Hare in the video section below. An example of internal exile is adjacent to it: Masood Raja's interpretation of 'Identity Card,' which refers to historically living and working on the land and now must identify himself.

[Betty]

James wrote: "If people want to read more of Darwish..."

One of his last publications is 'Butterfly's Burden.' That one could be an option for enthusiasts of Darwish after the collections cited in the comment.

[Betty]

Sue wrote: "...James...[y]our background information is very interesting and helpful...."

I agree, Sue.
James, the information in the comment is inspiring. Great job. Thanks.

[Betty]

This collection of Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish contains his poetry and prose and is a tribute to him after his death. At that time, unpublished materials in his home became the last haven to gather his remaining masterpieces. The poems speak to his feelings of exile, even imprisonment, and estrangement from his historical homeland through Israel's government's policies of distancing the land's former inhabitants.
The book is rich in nuance, making it well-suited to hide in a briefcase, sort of like 'Book of Disquiet' by Pessoa, to open at opportune times for reflection. It does not seem that one would ever tire of it or take it for granted because one reading cannot pick out all of its flowers.