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Review
Mahmoud Darwish is one of the two or three most admired, and widely read poets from the Arab world... While unequivocally anchored in the present, his poems draw on the traditions of Al-Andalus, the near-mythical site of flowering Arab, European and Sephardic Jewish art and science - as much in Darwish's re-creation and renewal of Arabic prosody and inweaving of legend as in his fraternal openness to and exchange with poets like Ritsos and Neruda. In the brilliant, bilingual poet Fady Joudah, Darwish has found a translator capable of rendering in English his unflinching, questing, and above all loving poems. --Marilyn Hacker
Like a kind of scientist, Mahmoud Darwish spent his life concocting Palestinian national identity, though its links to the land, and to the Arabic language and culture, were established long before him. In his poetry he tried to link that identity to a humanist global culture, to pre-Arab and pre-Islamic cultures of the Middle East, and to those details of human life that are beautiful in any culture or place. --Mourid Barghouti, Guardian
Like a kind of scientist, Mahmoud Darwish spent his life concocting Palestinian national identity, though its links to the land, and to the Arabic language and culture, were established long before him. In his poetry he tried to link that identity to a humanist global culture, to pre-Arab and pre-Islamic cultures of the Middle East, and to those details of human life that are beautiful in any culture or place. --Mourid Barghouti, Guardian
Product Description
Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008) was the poetic voice of the Palestinian people. One of the most acclaimed contemporary poets in the Arab world, he was also a prominent spokesman for human rights who has spent most of his life in exile. In his early work, the features of his beloved land - its flowers and birds, towns and waters - were an integral part of poems witnessing a string of political and humanitarian tragedies afflicting his people. In his most recent books, his writing stands at the border of earth and sky, reality and myth, poetry and prose. Returning to Palestine in 1996, he settled in Ramallah, where he surprised his huge following in the Arab world by writing a book of love, The Stranger's Bed (1998), singing of love as a private exile, not about exile as a public love. A State of Siege (2002) was his response to the second Intifada, his testament not only to human suffering but to art under duress, art in transmutation. The 47 short lyrics of Don't Apologise for What You've Done (2003) form a transfiguring incarnation or incantation of the poet after the carnage. The Butterfly's Burden is a translation of these three recent books, and was awarded the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation in 2008. Mahmoud Darwish died in Houston, Texas, in August 2008 from complications following heart surgery. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas immediately declared three days of national mourning to honour the great Arab writer. Winner of the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was buying this book as a present for an Arabic and English speaker and so was keen to get an edition of some of Darwish's poetry that was in both languages I was glad when the book arrived to see that the original poems are printed with the English version on the page next to it so there is no need to constantly flick through the book to get to the translation which I thought was handy.
* Note that I have not read any of the content so cannot pass comment on any of the actual poetry this is a review based only on the fact that I was keen to get an easy to read bilingual edition of some of Darwish's work and in this respect the book was exactly what I was looking for
* Note that I have not read any of the content so cannot pass comment on any of the actual poetry this is a review based only on the fact that I was keen to get an easy to read bilingual edition of some of Darwish's work and in this respect the book was exactly what I was looking for
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Consuming Oneself in the "We" of the "I"
24 Jun 2008
Format:Paperback
I have waited for this book like a nomad in the desert longs for a night to set off for his journey, like the sea aches for its returning wave, like a poet who wants the reader to embrace his poem. Now I have it in front of me "The Butterfly's Burden", a journey of, and through, voice.There is an "I" that overflows from "you", a dialogue between masculine and feminine, prose and poetry. There is a question how to carry the "I" of the "we" without betraying one perception for the other. It's singing about love as a private exile.
Low Sky
by Mahmoud Darwish
There's a love walking on two silken feet
happy with its estrangement in the streets,
a love small and poor made wet by a passing rain
that it overflows onto passerby:
My gifts are larger than I am
eat my wheat
and drink my wine
my sky is on my shoulders and my earth is yours...
Did you smell the jasmine's radiant blood
and think of me
then wait with me for a green-tailed bird
that has no name?
There's a poor love starring at the river
in surrender to summoning: Where do you run to
seahorse?
Soon the sea will suck you in
so walk leisurely to your chosen death,
O seahorse!
Were you as two embankments for me
and was the place as it should be
light-footed on your memories?
What songs do you love
what songs? The ones
that speak about love thirst,
or about a time that has passed?
There's a poor love, one-sided
and quite serene it doesn't break
your select day's crystal
and doesn't light a fire in a cold moon
in your bed,
you don't sense it when you cry from an apprehension,
which might replace it,
you don't know what to feel when you embrace
yourself between your arms!
Which nights do you want, which nights
and what colour are those eyes that you dream
with when you dream?
There is a poor love, and two-sided
it diminishes the number of those in despair
and lifts the pigeons' throne on both sides.
You must, then, by yourself lead
this swift spring to the one you love.
Which time do you want, which time
that I may become its poet, just like that: whenever
a woman goes to her secret in the evening
she finds a poet walking in her thoughts.
Whenever a poet dives into himself
he finds a woman undressing before his poem...
Which exile do you want?
Will you come with me, or walk alone
in your name as an exile that adorns exile
with its glitter?
There's love passing through us,
without us noticing,
and neither it knows nor do we know
why a rose in an ancient wall makes us fugitives
and why a girl at the bus stop cries,
bites on an apple then laughs and cries:
Nothing,nothing more
than a bee passing through my blood...
There's a poor love, it contemplates
at length the passerby, and chooses
the youngest moon among them:You are in need
of a lower sky,
be my friend and the sky will expand
for the selfishness of two who do not know
to whom they should give their flowers...
Maybe it meant me,maybe
it meant us and we didn't notice
There is a love...The Butterfly's Burden
Low Sky
by Mahmoud Darwish
There's a love walking on two silken feet
happy with its estrangement in the streets,
a love small and poor made wet by a passing rain
that it overflows onto passerby:
My gifts are larger than I am
eat my wheat
and drink my wine
my sky is on my shoulders and my earth is yours...
Did you smell the jasmine's radiant blood
and think of me
then wait with me for a green-tailed bird
that has no name?
There's a poor love starring at the river
in surrender to summoning: Where do you run to
seahorse?
Soon the sea will suck you in
so walk leisurely to your chosen death,
O seahorse!
Were you as two embankments for me
and was the place as it should be
light-footed on your memories?
What songs do you love
what songs? The ones
that speak about love thirst,
or about a time that has passed?
There's a poor love, one-sided
and quite serene it doesn't break
your select day's crystal
and doesn't light a fire in a cold moon
in your bed,
you don't sense it when you cry from an apprehension,
which might replace it,
you don't know what to feel when you embrace
yourself between your arms!
Which nights do you want, which nights
and what colour are those eyes that you dream
with when you dream?
There is a poor love, and two-sided
it diminishes the number of those in despair
and lifts the pigeons' throne on both sides.
You must, then, by yourself lead
this swift spring to the one you love.
Which time do you want, which time
that I may become its poet, just like that: whenever
a woman goes to her secret in the evening
she finds a poet walking in her thoughts.
Whenever a poet dives into himself
he finds a woman undressing before his poem...
Which exile do you want?
Will you come with me, or walk alone
in your name as an exile that adorns exile
with its glitter?
There's love passing through us,
without us noticing,
and neither it knows nor do we know
why a rose in an ancient wall makes us fugitives
and why a girl at the bus stop cries,
bites on an apple then laughs and cries:
Nothing,nothing more
than a bee passing through my blood...
There's a poor love, it contemplates
at length the passerby, and chooses
the youngest moon among them:You are in need
of a lower sky,
be my friend and the sky will expand
for the selfishness of two who do not know
to whom they should give their flowers...
Maybe it meant me,maybe
it meant us and we didn't notice
There is a love...The Butterfly's Burden
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Stunning translation and beautiful poetry
29 Nov 2007
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Fady Joudah has done a stunning translation to Darwish's fine work. It's just beautiful. I'm reading the book over and over since I purchased it, and Darwish's work is just amazing especially in his long poem "a state of siege."
I advice you to read this book if you're interested in poetry in general, because Darwish is a world poet and he represents humans everywhere.
I advice you to read this book if you're interested in poetry in general, because Darwish is a world poet and he represents humans everywhere.
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