Publishers' Weekly Starred Review for New Darwish

If I Were Another Mahmoud Darwish, trans. from the Arabic by Fady Joudah. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-17429-3

This second volume by the late, great Palestinian poet Darwish (1941–2008) to be translated by Palestinian-American doctor/poet Joudah comprises four nonconsecutive books of longer poems spanning 1990 to 2005. These works follow Darwish's poetic development from a historically focused middle period to the devastatingly personal lyric-epic of his late style. Formally varied—Rubaiyats alternate with sprawling free-form poems, in which prose paragraphs meet both long and short verse lines—Darwish's Sufi-inspired poetry probes, admires, describes, longs for and questions. His subjects are often broad: the inheritance and disinheritance of lands, languages and histories. Sometimes, though, he turns to concrete need, confessing, for example, in “Mural,” his book-length poem about a brush with death: “I want to walk to the bathroom/ on my own.” But Darwish's poems are at their most singular and powerful when he collapses the boundaries between great and small concerns, as when he articulates, “Wars teach us to love detail: the shape of our door keys,/ how to comb our wheat with eyelashes and walk lightly on our land.” The stakes of this work—for Darwish and for his readers—are clear: “O my language,/ help me to adapt and embrace the universe.” (Nov.)

PW Reviews 17 Aug 2009

Raja Shehadeh on Mahmoud Darwish

In the Guardian BooksBlog, one Palestinian writer pays tribute to another, who was also his neighbour in Ramallah. Not just a small literary world, but a moving tribute from a Palestinian writer whose reputation is growing fast to a national mentor figure and international ambassador for Palestinian literature.


A candlelit vigil in Ramallah following the death of Mahmoud Darwish. Photograph: EPA

John Berger on Mahmoud Darwish

John Berger has been perhaps the most vocal advocate and generous reader of Mahmoud Darwish's poetry in the English-speaking world, bringing into being (with translator Fady Joudah and publisher Neil Astley) the major collected works, The Butterfly's Burden. He has written many essays on the interconnection of place and poetry in Palestinian literature -- the most recent being the resonantly-titled "A Place Weeping," in this months Threepenny Review. In the essay, he describes a visit to Darwish's grave in the village of Al Rabweh, coining the term 'landswept,' with its double intimation of tears and razing, to speak of the landscape he sees and feels. He ends with an exhortation to travel imaginatively through a continued engagement with Darwish's poetry:

Mahmoud Darwish's grave on the hill of Al Rabweh has now, following decisions made by the Palestinian Authority, been fenced off, and a glass pyramid has been constructed over it. It's no longer possible to squat beside him. His words, however, are audible to our ears and we can repeat them and go on doing so.

Palfest 09 Closing Night: Two Poems

Thanks to Marcy Newman at Body on the Line for flagging up and making available these two amazing readings by Palestinian poets Suheir Hammad and Nathalie Handal from the final night of Palfest '09 (which was moved on again by the Israeli authorities). You can read more of Newman's account of the final event here.

Nathalie Handal reads a poem dedicated to Mahmoud Darwish

Suheir Hammad reading a poem that records and collects words and phrases said to her, in Arabic and in English, during her week in Palestine

Palfest 09: Culture vs. Power

The Guardian reports today that armed Israeli police last night tried to halt the opening night of the Palestinian Festival of Literature, organised by Ahdaf Soueif, when they ordered a Palestinian theatre in East Jerusalem to close, claiming that the festival - which is funded by the British Council and UNESCO - had received funding from the Palestinian Authority.

Soueif writes on Palfest's author blog (referring to a famous phrase of Edward Said's):

Today, my friends, we saw the clearest example of our mission: to confront the culture of power with the power of culture.

Despite attempts to prevent the sharing and transmission of culture, Palfest is using all the communications tools at its disposal to reach out -- for videos, photos, blogs and other Palfest updates go here. Here's a video from the opening night:

Fatena al-Gharra: The Lost Button and Woman of Mint

Two final poems from Fatena al-Gharra, as translated by Sarah Maguire, Anna Murison and Sarah Vaghefian in their workshop at the Poetry Translation Centre: The Lost Button, a sensual moment snatched on a hurried pavement (I can't help but hear an allusion to Gertrude Stein's lovely and loving Tender Buttons in the title); and Woman of Mint. The poem is divided into two stanzas, a She stanza and a He stanza, with the person of the opposite gender only appearing in the final two lines of each stanza, creating an erotic tension from the (mandated) separation of the genders in observant Islamic societies. In her notes, Sarah comments that

It's fascinating to witness a woman poet writing in Arabic using a 'feminine' mint plant and a 'masculine' nettle to express her feelings about gender.

The play with the natural world and the switch of point-of-view in the poem is reminiscent of the Song of Songs, in which the female speaker may be the Queen of Sheba and aligned with the Arabic world, and the male speaker Solomon and aligned with the Israelites. So here the male figure is a nettle, a plant that spreads and takes over land. Within the erotic tension is (perhaps) a biting national allegory, controlled by the female voice.

Festivals: Free the Word, Palestine Festival of Literature

In London today International PEN's Free the Word festival kicks off. Running through the weekend, it boasts a packed calendar of themed events exploring Heaven and Earth -- set off beautifully by the festival's primary location, Shakespeare's Globe. The festival brings together writers from around the world, many of whom make their homes in the UK, including to UK-based Arab writers: Samir El-Youssef will take part in "Beyond Faith and Reason" this evening, while on Sunday Leila Aboulela will join controversial French author Catherine Millet to discuss "Heavenly Pleasures."

Travelling in the opposite direction, 17 international writers head to Palestine for the second Palestine Festival of Literature from 23rd-28th May 2009. Because of the difficulties Palestinians face under military occupation in travelling around their own country, the Festival group of 17 international writers will travel to its audiences in the West Bank. It will tour to Ramallah, to Jenin, to al-Khalil/Hebron and to Bethlehem. To mark Jerusalem’s status as Cultural Capital of the Arab World for 2009, the festival will begin and end in Jerusalem. On the occasion of the first festival, last year, Mahmoud Darwish said:

Thank you, dear friends, for your noble solidarity, thank you for your courageous gesture to break the moral siege inflicted upon us and thank you because you are resisting the invitation to dance on our graves. We are still here. We are still alive.

This year, there are several Arab writers participating: Suad Amiry, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Jamal Mahjoub, Raja Shehadeh, and Ahdaf Soueif. Soueif, chair and Founder of PALFEST, said

We were overwhelmed by the responses of both our audience and our authors last year; so we can't wait to go back. We found that Palestinian cities – even in theextraordinarily cruel circumstances in which they find themselves – manage to produce brilliant art and top class education. PALFEST aims to help them carry on doing that.

The Palestine Festival of Literature was inspired by the call of the late great Palestinian thinker, Edward Said, to “reaffirm the power of culture over the culture of power.” PALFEST 09 is organized in co-operation with Yabous Productions, and in partnership with the British Council.

Darwish Therapy in Athens Airport

A beautiful post about poetry in motion (and in everyday life, both lived and virtual) by Palestinian blogger Raising Yousuf.

__Updated__

Global Voices provides some context on Raising Yousuf blogger Laila El-Haddad's airport purgatory. El-Haddad offers up this thought as a larger context for her own recent experience of being refused entry into Gaza, her home:

“The quintessential Palestinian experience,” historian Rashid Khalidi has written, “takes place at a border, an airport, a checkpoint: in short, at any one of those many modern barriers where identities are checked and verified.”

News and Reviews: Arab Book World & a New Biography

There's a new issue of Arab World Books: as well as new poems, short stories and reviews, it includes an announcement that

The American University in Cairo is currently undertaking a feasibility study for the establishment of a center for translation studies that will contribute to the Arab region's cultural and intellectual life. Interested parties should contact Dr. Samia Mehrez.

There's more details in the Announcements section of the Forum. It's a publication of amazing range and depth, from a joint review of Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children by Tony Kushner and Alisa Solomon to an essay entitled The Secret Sex Lives of the Philosophers [Ar], by Abdou Hikki. The site is constantly updated with profiles of Arab writers and new work in the various languages spoken in the Arab world. An excellent resource and space of important cultural debate.

The National has a review of what the article reveals is, unbelievably, the first biography - in any language - of a Palestinian poet. Alina Hoffman's My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness is not only a biography of Taha Muhammad Ali (published in English by Ibis Editions, founded by Hoffman and her partner, Peter Cole), but also, according to the National, a superb contextual history of Palestinian intellectual and artistic life over the last half-century. Writing in the Seattle Times, Richard Wallace comments that

Hoffman expands her biography of one remarkable man to include a community of writers and a wider theme: how major events in Israel's political history influence and affect a writer's voice and purpose.

Updated 6/5/09:
The New York Times has a review of Hoffman's biography of Ali, which expresses a warm welcome at her well-told anecdotes and distinct disquiet at anything resembling politics.

The Message from Gaza: From Blog to Book

Professor Dr. Said Abdelwahed is one of the three bloggers at Moments of Gaza who have been providing on-the-ground news and observations from Gaza since December 2008. Dr. Abdelwahed's blogs struck a chord with Mari Oka, professor of Islamic and Middle East studies at Kyoto University, who translated and collected the posts into a book just published by Sedosha in Tokyo. Dr. Abdelwahed notes that

The Message from Gaza was the first book to document part of the war on Gaza from inside!

The swift transition from blog to book, and from English to Japanese, is distinctive evidence of the internet's potential to change the shape of journalism and publishing towards inclusion, polyphony and democratisation, while retaining high standards of reportage.

Voices from Gaza: Khaled Abedallah

It's been a while since the last poems in our series, but new translations are arriving. Sarah Maguire and the Poetry Translation Centre have been translating work by Khaled Abedallah, and the first poem Seeds in Flight has gone up on the PTC website. More work to come from this wonderful writer, and two pieces by Khaled Jum'a are being co-translated by Isis Nusair and Michael Rosen. To hear and see more about Gaza, check out the program for the 10th Palestine Film Festival, which takes place in London from April 24th - May 8th 2009 at the Barbican Cinema and SOAS.

Naser Rabah: Poems

Three poems from Naser Rabah, written in Maghaazi Camp, Gaza.

Our New Neighbor

1.
If we were to plant bullets
What would the earth sprout, I wonder?
Ripe corpses
Or dead trees?

2.
Even the cloud
The bullets pierced
Rained blood

3.
When bullets speak
Who needs translation?

4.
Bullets are our sole neighbor
Our pampered neighbor
Learns at night to play the guitar
To keep him company
My children sit behind me
And I hold my heart
And beat it like a drum

5.
Our papers expired
And bullets are now our metallic currency

6.
Release the bullets
Release them, and have a long night’s sleep
The bullets will howl
Howl
And at the end of the night return to you
A hungry and rapacious dog

7.
Anxiously the night shields you
Or per chance sees you
There is no escape
The bullet is an owl, and you a mouse

8.
The sniper does not see the eye of the gun
The sniper does not see the eye of the victim
The sniper does not see
Does not see

9.
What dead country in your migration do you seek
Oh, Flock of Bullets?

10.
Naked past the security gate
Naked
They heard the sound of the siren
Several times the guards inspected it
Naked
But a bullet builds its nest in memories



What Youssif Did Not Say

Wednesday is yours
And Thursday is yours,
And all the days of mourning are yours
Your eyes erode from tears
The years erode, your deep-rooted wisdom
The houses that stretch from river to sea erode
While waiting for me to return as the camel driver of caravans
Some time ago I gave you back the shirt
My weeping brothers still ask about me
They ask the Arab League and the itinerant Arabs
I am no longer Youssif, Father
I no longer drink cold coffee
When others are through with tribe talk
I await the Eid when you will buy me a new shirt
I no longer have brothers who cast stones into the creek of your tenderness
They shatter upon the knee of wrath my small dream
I am no longer a child, Father
I am the king of others
Master of the earth, guardian of wheat, the most handsome of prophets
I belong to others
Why should I return to you?
Torn was my shirt that governments held sacred
And carried around in the lean years
How my blood was a lie
Now you recognize the tribe’s wolf in every face
You recognize your eternal solitude in the Security Council,
When you turn over between your palms the new shirt
Studded with stars, perfumed with civilization
Console yourself with it… over me
With the fragrance of the land… over the land
With the keys… over the houses
I am no longer your child, Father
I am here to stay, so stand far over there
Blessed be my sons on the way to the wheat fields of their joy
They wake at dawn
Take the sun by the hand
To the last kernel in the field
Smile upon them, Father
Smile once
Perhaps they remember an ancient forefather
Who planted orchards and vines in the land of Canaan
They may remember you, as they shed the cloak
As they sip wine

Telegrams that will not arrive.

1.
When I give unto Caesar… what belongs to Caesar
And unto God…what belongs to God
What is left unto me…?

2.
The shadow has a memory of sorrow
The walls convey it from house to house
So that when my shadow passes me by
I find myself crying unawares

3.
The birds fear landing
When they cross my heart
Fear eating the crumbs of its sorrows
Turning into a heart like it,
And dying.

4.
When you sleep
Set a glass of water next to you
Why, oh Mother...?
So that your guardian angel may drink.

5.
On the way to our delusion..
We meet the returning ones
Happy
Flapping
Their God-given empty hands
And empty dreams.

6.
Graced is mankind with a love for women
Offspring
A trove of gold and silver
Branded horses
Livestock
And land*
Why, oh God, did you not grace it with a love for poetry?

7.
The cypress dreamt it was seduced by the cloud
And so it yearned for it
Reached, reached out its arms
But the passing cloud
Poured into the stream
Became the lover of the earth.

8.
What since Imru’ al-Qais**
Merits happiness?

9.
(A madman throws a rock down a well
And a hundred wise men fail to get it out)***

Why don’t they let it be then?

10.
I remembered
As the ambulance broke the sound barrier
And your wound convulsed blood and screams
That—putting aside the sight of blood—
You hate excessive speed.


* Holy Quran Surah III:14.
** Reference to the first line of a qaseeda by Imru’ al-Qais, Arabian poet of the 6th century
***A popular proverb

Translations by Rima S. Hassouneh

Faten al-Gharra: I Reveal Myself

Faten al-Gharra is an award-winning Palestinian poet with three collections to her name and an international following. The Poetry Translation Centre who produced this delicate and evocative translation of al-Gharra's beautiful poem. You can read more about their process, and see the Arabic original and English literal translation of the poem here.

I Reveal Myself

Descendant of raiders who landed on the beaches,
heir to the woman who unmanned Samson,
I am the daughter of waves and of memory,
a fresh shoot on old stock.

When I open my arms, the universe sets forth.
When I smile, honey wells from my virgin lips.
I take a step and the earth loses its balance.
In my laugh, earthquakes resound,
and volcanoes spurt from seven tectonic plates.

The child of frivolity and modesty,
I am the daughter of depravity and purity,
the progeny of black and white.

The tip of my finger taps the stars off track.
If I close my eyes,
darkness eclipses the world, until my eyelids lift
bathing it in gold.
And when I toss back my hair
the universe shivers in recognition.

I am today and I am tomorrow.
Crowned queen on the throne of space.
A blink, and fields foam green with wheat.
I am wheat itself. I am green.
The first harvest.
The last.


Translated by Sarah Maguire with Anna Murison and the Poetry Translation Centre Workshop

© The Poetry Translation Centre

Khaled Jum'a: Why?

Written in January, this short piece by Khaled Jum'a is an immediate and intense evocation of life under occupation.

Why?

The dense crowds made it seem like the Apocalypse had arrived; one coach, and people still flowed into it like a river without obstruction. Suitcases filled half the coach, and what was left had to be room enough for a hundred bodies. If not… we’d be spending the night here.

The space filled up with office workers dragging their exhausted bodies, yet the soldiers on the other side insisted we keep the first row empty, four whole seats… and you can say whatever you want… but… there’s no sitting in the front seats behind the driver… it’s military orders.

A five-year-old girl, who didn’t care about orders, or borders, or waiting… filled the place up with her laughter and her jostling about that bothered some of the people, but she didn’t care. She might have been wondering: What’s all this sadness on people’s faces?

After three thousand years of waiting, the doors closed. I was still in the same position, glued to my window, watching the little girl, oblivious to everything but her, when the driver took his seat behind the wheel and the engine’s rumbling shook us all. The child jumped over everyone and sat in one of the empty seats at the front of the coach, and again might have been wondering to herself: Why’s everyone squashed together and not sitting in these empty seats?

I looked at her with a smile I’d been hard-pressed to find, and she looked back and smiled without thinking. I said: Habibti, you’re not allowed to sit here. She sprawled out without paying attention to what I’d said, and asked, simply, while turning her head to look for her mother: Why?

Finally, when the soldier boarded the coach, he looked at her sitting there on the front seat, inspected the coach with an air of contempt, and left without a word. And I thought to myself: Why?

Translated by Isis Nusair and Shaun Levin

Emile Habiby on Stage

Body on the Line has a review-in-context of Mohamed Bakri's one-man-show based on Emile Habiby's novel The Secret Life of Saeed, also known as The Pessoptimist, or The Opsimist. Actor and director Bakri, best known for his film Jenin, Jenin, was a close friend of Habiby's and in 2006 wrote and filmed Since You Left, a poetic meditation on the life and death of this leading novelist and politician. A lifelong inhabitant of Haifa, Habiby was only writer to win – and, controversially, accept – both the al-Quds prize given by the PLO and the Israel Prize in 1990.

The production is being staged at the Freedom Theatre in the refugee camp at Jenin, which has also played host to a stage version of Mahmoud Darwish's Memory for Forgetfulness.

Najah Awadallah: Sad Song

Another beautiful piece from Najah Awadallah, whose short story appeared on Tuesday.

SAD SONG
(Five days under Attack)


First day-
The violin bow is completely taut, conversing with its strings, while a gigantic bird delivers its first blows, and the residential high-rise trembles…with a shudder the violin’s bow snaps backwards, though quickly I retune it in order to control the fear in my music teacher’s eyes. I lead her to the safest spot in the house.

I smile to ease her tension. They’re working and demolishing upstairs while we play music.

Hysterical thoughts overwhelm me: What if we went outside and played a little over the rubble? Will this bird chirp and flap its wings away from us? She smiles a sad smile, we restart playing a piece from Tchaikovsky’s “Sad Song,” the bow falls in sorrow on the violin, while wrath pours from the sky.

I say goodbye to my teacher before the lesson is over. I fear for her safety. I say goodbye until the next lesson.


Second day-
While the violin is frightened in its box, the metal birds play their music from the score of Gaza’s remains.

In a book I find shelter from a death I see and smell, a book in which I don’t want to be the heroine or the narrator, or even a street corner, just a period or a comma, a question or an exclamation mark at most.

I ask myself: Is it fear for life or escape from it into paper where I alone hold the decision to end the sentence or turn the page?!


Third day-
I look out of my forlorn window at the street that pedestrian feet have abandoned. It is empty of the noisy vendors who had often annoyed me and I had often assailed them with a thousand curses. Now I implore a single sound so I can feel alive and so the city can feel the living are still ringing the bells of life within it.

I spot a herd of goats whose shepherd risked his life in order to feed them what remains of grass untouched by rain. Joy ululates in me like a child when I hear the little goats bleat. I delight in them as I hide behind the curtains.


Fourth day-
The sun wakes me from my sleep and I wash my face with its light. I feel pleasure in the notion that humans are unable to invent a devilish idea and conceal it from those they war with and hate. Exhausted, dark Gaza has had enough night.


Fifth day-
The molten bullets are still pouring over the city. They grant the foreigners the right to leave and exempt them from war. I call my teacher and her husband tells me she has already left. The violin has left the city. Music raises its arms up, in surrender, to the bullets.

I get my violin out of its coffin and play “Sad Song.” My lids are swollen. I am ashamed to tell my husband I’m crying over my teacher’s departure and my violin’s aloneness.

Only now has Gaza become orphaned.

Translated by Fady Joudah.

Yousef Alqedra: Poems

Translator Ali Issa comments that Yousef Alqedra's language is often deliberately and distinctively awkward in Arabic, an "awkwardness" he didn't try to smooth over in translation.

Shade fights barriers of illusion
erasing its heavy awakening.
I also cooperate . . .
Your absence is a hell made of nightmares.
I do not sign on the echo of fatigue’s tremble.
I just whisper an unimprisonable secret into the ear of the universe
and slap it in the face!


* * *


Let’s Say

Let’s say
there’s a beautiful port
embraced by a calm blue
and your heart’s seagulls
are flying.

It’s hot, of course,
and only your smiles
moisten the beach and its goers.




An old man with a forehead
from an old country, and a hook
-on your right-
that he catches his memories with and sobs.
On your left, the heart of a failed phrase.
The sea was as happy as it could be,
the curb out in the water.
Its edges were colored with green and grass.




Your two wide eyes left the country.
They’d covered my soul more than I’d thought.
The sun was about to set.
My hand slipped from between us
when it got close to your shaking hand.
I acted out of aesthetic necessity.

Like this:
Time took us on a journey
from a dream to physics.





The discussion was heavy and had an air of chemistry.
It was overflowing with butterflies’ liveliness,
dressed in an elegant surprise,
reviewing used meanings,
and furnishing for a fresh and smiling world.

There are children playing like distant continents.
The shore is a piece of glass.
The photos look like our joy
and friends were warm and a genuine shelter.






I told you that your presence:
is a real shove to a stupid illusion,
warmth to a gatherer of diasporas,
beauty that lessens the burden of the end.
I still sometimes suspect
that I’m a character
in a dream of yours!

Najah Awadallah: A Story

Najah Awadallah is an experienced storyteller, having worked in television design, documentary filmmaking and as a writer.

---

She woke up in the morning to the usual screaming and commotion of her five children. She wished she could remain in bed, even just for a few minutes, to let herself feel that it was actually a holiday for her. It was not to be, however, as her children’s screaming in the salon adjacent to her bedroom scattered this tiny desire. She feared that the echoes of their quarrel might reach her husband’s bed and deprive him of the satisfaction of sleeping in the morning.

She wondered why was it that every time the morning opened its box of tricks and took out light and the sun to illuminate the world, it did not remember to illuminate the hearts of those around her and spread peace and quiet through them. She put this query aside and began to think about what awaited her on this holiday that was not going to finish before it finished her. When she went back over what awaited her, she sighed so deeply from her heart that she frightened the birds taking refuge by her bedroom window. How she wished, in that instant, that she had wings like theirs that could take her to the sea to wash her feet and refresh her soul. To steal from time an hour that would be for herself only.

Ever since she had opened her eyes to the world, she could see the sea but had never enjoyed its water. She saw it as if it were a portrait she was forbidden to touch. Mere footsteps separated her from it, yet she would only go with her family to clean its salty sand and water off her children’s bodies. She would clean them with joy, smelling the odor of the sea ion them. More footsteps separated her from the sea, yet she could not embrace it. And even if she wanted to, she would have to put on all the clothes in her closet to hide anything possibly scandalous. So she cut short the whole matter and muted her desire whenever the sea enticed her with its vigor and blueness. It saddened her to the point of madness that her sea was not like the ones she saw on television screens. She had heard that her sea’s beach was one of the cleanest in the world. Maybe. But she was searching for the happiness that shows all over people’s faces.

The screams of the little ones shook her awake from her daydream. She had a long laugh, as her eyes welled up with tears.

Translated by Suneela Mubayi.

Nasr Jamil Shaath: Poems

Justification

I told you repeatedly:
Shiny poetry cannot
Inject the war with a needle of reconciliation
To the world, poetry is light as feather.
Until dawn I stayed stockpiling the opinion of poetry on papers,
But the world does not recognize a status for poetry.
When you violated the honor of my name
I realized, nevertheless,
You begrudged me my civilization.

Exit

After a few minutes, not five
I will leave my home.
The balcony girl will see me,
An old lady at the intersection plays
With naked white pebbles,
She raises the roof of wisdom for me to ascend.
Beyond the houses of my neighborhood,
Beyond the deafening horns of the cars
Beyond the annoying folks
I will emerge, like a prophet,
From white water!

Translated by Amal Eqeiq and Samer Al-Saber

More Writing from Gaza

I hope you've been enjoying this past week's pieces by Atef Abu Said and Soumaya Susi.

The process of collating this portfolio has been exhilarating, but abstract, circulating through the myriad loops of the web, with poems and stories flying to and fro between Gaza, London, the US, and the ether. The 'net creates the illusion of a nationless globe in which information, emotion and creativity can flow -- and yet it also reinforces national boundaries. Issues of censorship, access, language, and politics all delimit and define individuals' roles in the worldwide web -- we are not equal netizens. And as in nations, so online: in the last few weeks I've read about teams of Israeli and Zionist hackers working to take down Palestinian websites, and vice-versa. Blogs boil over: too often, they serve as mouthpieces preaching to the converted and provoking the unconvertable, rather than fora for the kinds of discussion that can change minds and create alliances.

There are also amazing sites online like Poetry International Web that use the network of global connections to increase the flow of creativity between readers and writers around the world, and to give hope to the argument that the internet can provide a voice for those who would otherwise be silenced. In doing so, it's an extension of what poetry and song have always done: like a news ballad circulating from mouth to ear, the web has come to provide us with globally common expressions (such as shoe-throwing) that speak truth to power, as well as a place to gather (virtually) and speak them. Many writers are eager for any space that allows their words to enlarge, to echo back from readers.

The next two upcoming writers are no exception: Nasr Jamil Shaath is, at 29, not only a widely-published and award-winning poet, but also a critic and editor who promotes the work of other writers of his generation in international journals, while Najah Awadallah has the experience of reaching out to large audiences as a documentary filmmaker and programme designer for the Palestinian Television and Broadcasting Authority.

There's still work to come from Khaled Jumaa, Fatena al-Gharra, Khaled Abedallah, Yousef Alqedra and Naser Rabah, from translators including Sarah Maguire, Isis Nusair, Ali Issa, Fady Joudah, and Randa Jarrar. Keep checking iN.