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“Thirteen Maqams” from Fady Joudah (a Palestinian lament)
I’m linking to this extraordinary rage-meditation before it gets taken down for whatever “national security” reason: A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation: Thirteen Maqams for an Afterlife, by the magnificent Palestinian-American poet/translator and physician Fady Joudah. Thanks to LitHub for making it available, and thanks to Louise Glück, wherever she’s traveling these days, for choosing Joudah’s first book for the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 2007. For anyone interested in the title of Joudah’s lament, here’s a good place to start exploring maqam.Read More
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Mahmoud Darwish’s Mural
Mural by Mahmoud DarwishMy rating: 4 of 5 stars I won’t “review” the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s Mural, which contains the gorgeous 45-page title poem and a second, shorter poem, “The Dice Player,” both brought over into vigorous English by Rema Hammami and John Berger. “Mural” was written after Darwish underwent a life-threatening surgical procedure, and the poem bears the scars of that crisis; “The Dice Player,” his last poem, the poet read publicly in Ramallah just a month before his death on August 9, 2008.Read More
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A National Anthem
This extraordinary poem by Mahmoud Darwish appears in the new (October 2008) issue of The Progressive. Many thanks to Darwish’s American translator, Fady Joudah (see here and here), for bringing Darwish to us in such supple English.Read More
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Entering the Mystery
Why is it that a poem such as this, composed in a language I don’t know and translated into mine — losing what and gaining what, I can’t pretend to say — … why is it that this speaks so much more powerfully than the hundreds of American poems I’ve read this summer? (Their considerable brilliance has struck me as being like sunlight dazzling off the surface of a swimming pool: surface flashes, sparkling words on vacation.) It can’t be this poem’s artistry, which I can experience only through the translator’s screen; it can’t be some personal resonance in the…Read More
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More on Darwish
Many more links about the life, work, and death of Mahmoud Darwish here, courtesy of the indefatigable Ron Silliman.Read More
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Adios, Mahmoud Darwish
“Mahmoud Darwish, the world’s most recognized Palestinian poet, whose prose gave voice to the Palestinian experience of exile, occupation and infighting, died on Saturday in Houston, Texas.” Full story here.Read More
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The Poetry of Outsidership
I just discovered a site called Goodreads, and yesterday I posted this brief review there. I’ve expanded it somewhat and added a few links for this incarnation. Someone once pointed out that judges of the Yale Younger Poets competition are dependent on what comes across their desks. There are fat years and lean years. W. S. Merwin’s first year as judge was a lean one, evidently, since he could find no manuscript worth publishing. But last year was a fat one, if Fady Joudah‘s The Earth in the Attic (selected by Louise Glück) is any indication.Read More
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Essential Breath
Fiona Sampson’s review of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s The Butterfly’s Burden, is — according to Laila Lalami — the first review of this copious collection since the book’s release in the U.S. over a year ago by Copper Canyon Press. (The fact that such an important book would have to be republished in England before a major news outlet would acknowledge its existence makes one wonder if the Israel Lobby doesn’t influence more than U.S.Read More
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
