I Don't Want This Poem to End: Early and Late Poems

by Mahmoud Darwish, Mohammad Shaheen

Overview

When the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008, his friends visited his home and retrieved poems and writings some of which are gathered together in this volume, translated into English for the first time. They include three collections from different phases in Darwish’s writing career, as well as reminiscences by friends drawn from the poet’s final years, and a moving account of the discovery of the new poems in this collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781566560009
Publisher:	Interlink Publishing Group, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/15/2017
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Mahmoud Darwish, born in 1941 in the village of al-Birweh, Palestine, was the author of over two dozen volumes of poetry and prose. He died in the summer of 2008. Mohammad Shaheen is professor of English at the University of Jordan and the author of many books, including E.M. Forster and the Politics of Imperialism.

Table of Contents

Translator Reflections 1

Introduction: The story of the last collection of poems Elias Khoury 14

The End of Night 35

Beneath the Ancient Windows 37

1 The Old Wound 37

2 A Song of Love on the Cross 38

3 Out of the Myth 39

4 Apology 40

5 The Impossible 41

6 Base and Dictionary 41

7 Promises from the Storm 42

Mawwal 43

Sleep Not - My Love 46

The Prisoner Has Aged 48

Rita and the Rifle 49

A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies 51

An Innocent Song about the Cross 55

So why did they blow up ray little house! 56

The Flowers of Blood 58

1 The Singer of Blood 58

2 Autumn Conversation 59

3 Death for Nothing 60

4 Casualty Number 18 61

5 Casualty Number 48 62

6 The Eyes of the Dead at the Gates 63

The Prisoner and the Moon 65

A Day 67

Abandon Me Not 69

To a Lost Love 70

Songs for the Homeland 71

1 A Forehead and Rage 71

2 Homeland 71

3 No Escape 72

4 Reaction 73

5 The Tryst 73

6 I Love You More 74

The Song and the Sultan 76

It is a Song, It is a Song 79

We Will Leave 81

Seaside Resort 84

Dust of the Caravans 87

A Solo Performance 90

This Is My Autumn, All of It 93

Four Private Addresses 95

1 A Square Meter in Prison 95

2 A Seal on a Train 96

3 Intensive Care Room 96

4 Hotel Room 97

I Am the Unlucky Lover 99

At the Gates of the Story 102

At the End of Things 105

Fantasia for Reed Pipe 108

An Attempted Suicide 111

The Time Has Come for the Poet to Kill Himself 115

Oedipus 118

The Storyteller Writes: [The Author Is Dead] 121

I Name You Narcissus Around My Heart 124

From the Silver of Death Which Has No Death in It 129

I Don't Want this Poem to End 139

1 The Backgammon Player 141

Here, Now, and Here and Now 141

Two Eyes 145

The Air Is Full of Lilies 146

On a Railway Which Has Fallen off the Map 148

The Backgammon Player 155

A Ready Scenario 167

2 I Don't Want This Poem to End 170

3 This Dried-Up Leaf Is Nothing but Words 180

He Comes and Goes 180

How Swift the Night 181

Who Used to Dream 182

Fear 183

If There Has to Be a Moon 186

Night Without a Dream 186

An Old Moon 187

I Long for You, I Loathe You 187

This Evening 188

Tulaylat Alhirwah 189

An Appointment with Emile Habibi 191

At the House of Nizar Qabbani 193

In Ramallah 194

Chivalry 197

A Traveler 198

I Had Forgotten to Forget You 199

Realists 200

I Shall Not Replace the Strings of My Guitar 201

Holy Hills 203

To a Young Poet 206

As If Death Is My Amusement 209

There is a Love Without a Cause 210

Had You Been Born 211

Words 212

Letter to his brother, from prison 214

On exile 217

An interview with Mahmoud Darwish 223

The last meeting with Mahmoud, Darwish Faisal Darraj 234

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/20/2017
This alluring volume comprising three poetry collections from acclaimed Palestinian poet Darwish (1941–2008), available in English for the first time, also features complementary correspondence and essays on the poet’s life, composition process, and activism. Translator and editor Shaheen treats the poetic text as an artifact of a life in language, recognizing that Darwish’s movement through language was inevitably both personal and political. The title of the collection and some of its lines “might be said to be the last words spoken by the poet,” observes Elias Khoury in his introduction. Such graceful contextualization allows readers to appreciate the nuances of the translation and Darwish’s own words: “He says to her as they gaze at a rose/ Which scratches the wall: death came a little nearer to me,” Darwish writes in the title poem. That these may have been among Darwish’s last words heightens the emotional impact of both the poem’s craft and the faultless translation. The image of the rose functions as an emblem for the possibility—of empathy, kindness, and enlightenment—that art opens within political life. By carefully framing Darwish’s poetry as the record of a citizen inhabiting the complexities of Palestine’s political landscape, Shaheen delivers a volume ideally suited to both scholars and newcomers to Darwish’s body of work. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"This alluring volume comprising three poetry collections from acclaimed Palestinian poet Darwish (1941- 2008), available in English for the first time, also features complementary correspondence and essays on the poet's life, composition process, and activism. Translator and editor Shaheen treats the poetic text as an artifact of a life in language, recognizing that Darwish's movement through language was inevitably both personal and political. The title of the collection and some of its lines 'might be said to be the last words spoken by the poet, 'observes Elias Khoury in his introduction. Such graceful contextualization allows readers to appreciate the nuances of the translation and Darwish's own words: 'He says to her as they gaze at a rose, Which scratches the wall: death came a little nearer to me,' Darwish writes in the title poem. That these may have been among Darwish's last words heightens the emotional impact of both the poem's craft and the faultless translation. The image of the rose functions as an emblem for the possibility- of empathy, kindness, and enlightenment- that art opens within political life. By carefully framing Darwish's poetry as the record of a citizen inhabiting the complexities of Palestine's political landscape, Shaheen delivers a volume ideally suited to both scholars and newcomers to Darwish's body of work."

From the Publisher