-
A Secret Feast
I bought the Lebanese poet Joumana Haddad‘s Invitation to a Secret Feast: Selected Poems for three reasons. First, the book’s title is beguiling; second, the selection is edited and partially translated by Khaled Mattawa, whose work as a poet and translator I’ve admired for some time; third, she is associated with the Shiir magazine group whose tutelary presence was Adonis (Ali Ahmad Sa’id), a man who in my humble opinion should have been awarded the Nobel Prize years ago. Haddad defies every common American stereotype of Arabic women.Read More