/The Fence/Saadi Youssef Translated by Khaled Mattawa Khaled Mattawa is a cultural ambassador and poet-translator of Arabic poetry giving voice to a vast literature largely unknown in the Western hemisphere. In masterful translations that evoke the...
I touch my heart, every day I touch the floor of the guest room And I spin in my memory Looking for the place where we sat one day !I can't find it though I touch my forehead every day I touch the floor of the kitchen I daze in my memory searching...
Your hands easy weight, teasing the bees hived in my hair, your smile at the slope of my cheek. On the occasion, you press above me, glowing, spouting readiness, and mystery rapes my reason When you have withdrawn yourself and the magic, when only th...
Muslims throughout the world are observing Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar that occurs about 11 days earlier each year; after 33 years, this 11-day difference makes Muslims, anywhere in the world, fast equally du...
Saleh Razzouk (with Scott Minar) My father told me to keep calm until he got back, then he went off with Um Habib*. Afte...
I arrive in the former Jewish ghetto in Prague on July 2, the day before Kafka’s birthday. I’d been reading him all year. And not only him—but about him--the biographies, the criticism. Kafka and the Cabbalah, Kafka on Film…why was I so hung up on...
The body is the vessel of the soul and thought, and the woman’s body is the secret of life. The artist, Zaineb Shaban, celebrated this concept through 28 artworks in her seventh solo exhibition, entitled “Body and Soul”, held in...
Lady: I thought when I saw you waiting, wearing your silence, you are tired. Your eyes were talking, and yes, you hid, I swear, you hid something. Would you please tell me: what is occupying you? Be brave, do not be afraid I am for you, you are par...
for Syria and Ukraine I was dreaming its surface with my thumb Flying along carving a small wake, A river and a fish. That dream—but when I woke Heard the noisy street. What am I doing, I thought? Liv...
Since last year I did not write poetry. I won’t, no need. Thank you, God. Huge numbers are here and there. I divorced fake poetry and immigrated away to a quiet bay that knows nothing but the truth. Kids in my village understand my poems. My poem...