poets-from-palestine

"Barghouti did not engage in ineffectual discussions about the rightful owners of Palestine "because we did not lose Palestine to a debate, we lost it to force.""

"In my despair I remember; that there is life after death ... But I ask: Oh my God, is there life before death?"

"For an exile, the habitual place and status of a person is lost. One who is known becomes anonymous, one who is generous has to watch what he spends, one who is merry gazes in silence."

"The homeland does not leave the body until the last moment, the moment of death. The fish, Even in the fisherman's net, Still carries The smell of the sea."

"When we were Palestine, we were not afraid of the Jews. We did not hate them, we did not make an enemy of them. Europe of the Middle Ages hated them, but not us. Ferdinand and Isabella hated them, but not us. Hitler hated them, but not us."

"my reticence and lack of involvement in the political uproar did not mean that I had no sensitivity to it, or did not live under its curse, which hangs constantly over our heads. Like many others, I stood perplexed at the reality around us. With hearts burning from the pain and tragedy we had known, we continued searching, in vain, for a meaning to all that was happening around us. The reality we were living every moment of our lives was one of sheer pain and misery. (p188)"

"In a poem I wrote to her at the death of her younger brother Nimr in 1963 I called her: 'Mistress of the two gifts: love and pain'. She is as eloquent in her praise of love as she is in her communion with death, and later on, when her political anger changed her into a poet of the Palestinian resistance, in her homage to the struggle of her people for freedom. A new phase of her career as poet began when she started holding her audiences spellbound as she read her poetry denouncing the evils of occupation...A woman with no inclination to preach, teach or pontificate, the riches of her life and experience cannot fail to set the example of final triumph and achievement to thousands of women all over the world."

"A marvelous book for a very important Palestinian poetess."

"one of the most important poets of Palestine. She wrote a book that is like the bible of the palestinian feminist movement...She was a rebel, and she established the poetry of love and loneliness in Palestine."

"I shall write, I shall write a lot. I feel I have been for some time living moment by moment in a drama, moved by every act in it. All of a sudden I, myself, am a poem, burning with anguish, dejected, hopeful, looking beyond the horizon! (p191)"

"Annihilation is, indeed, part of our being, but art is immortal. A sense of the tyranny of annihilation and the ephemeral quality of life always prompts the artist to create something more permanent then the self. (p188)"

"Spring, the breath of youth, sends a driving force through my whole being. I have just returned from a walk. The moon was full, the air laden with a unique fragrance from jasmine, damask roses and al-naseem flowers from the gardens of the surrounding houses. (p184)"

"Throughout my literary career I have shrunk within myself and shied away whenever confronted with questions concerning my private life and the factors that have directed and influenced it. I've always recognised that the reason for this shrinking and shying away may be that I have never been satisfied or happy with my life. Like a tree that has borne little fruit, I have always longed for greater achievement and wider horizons. (first lines)"

"A seed does not see the light without first cleaving a difficult path through the earth. This story of mine is the story of the seed's battle against the hard rocky soil; a story of struggle, deprivation and enormous difficulties. (first page)"

"The iron mould the family cast us in and would not allow us to break, the time-worn rules difficult to overturn, the mindless traditions imprisoning the girl in a life of trivialities...I yearned continually to escape from my time and place. The time was an age of subjection, repression and dissolution into nothingness; the place was the prison of the house. Some come into this world to find the way smoothly paved before them; others arrive to find it thorny and rough. Fate threw me on to a rough path and on it I began my journey up the mountain. I carried the rock and endured the fatigue of the endless ascents and descents. Great expectations and soaring dreams are not enough; even sheer will-power is not sufficient. I realised that action is the obverse of the coin, the reverse being dream and will-power. I determined to do business with this two-sided coin: will and action."

"The poorer women thought nothing of moving around the bath rooms with naked breasts and buttocks. I was delighted with the spontaneity of these women, who lived in a much freer and more down-to-earth atmosphere than that of the bourgeoisie, which was characterised by falsehood and hypocrisy. (p23)"

"Just as tyrannical surveillance, repression and sugjugation in society give rise to the dual traits of submission and rebelliousness, the same is true of individuals. Anyone who grows up in an environment of secret police surveillance and oppressive family authority will emerge with a dual psyche. There are always acquired characteristics, arising as a result of social and, in particular, family subjugation. (p28)"

"The man dominated family life, as in all homes of our society. The woman had to forget that the word 'no' existed in the language, except when she repeated, "There is no God but God', in her ablutions and prayers. 'Yes' was the parroted word instilled in her from infancy, to become embedded in her consciousness for the rest of her life. The right to express her feelings or views was prohibited. Laughing and singing were also taboo and could be indulged in only secretly, after the men, the lords and masters, left for work. Personal independence was a concept foreign to a woman all her life."

"In school I was able to discover some parts of my lost self. There I established myself as a person, something I had not been able to do at home. (p45)"

"With the arrival of spring, I experienced this thing called love that has continued endlessly to spin its cocoon around my being. Here was the answer to the question Mother had denied me. It came borne on a jasmine flower redolent with scent that fastened itself to the walls of my heart. Even now I can feel an invisible hand pushing me into that past every time the scent of jasmine drifts towards me. There are dozens of years behind me now as I recall that event, but the excitement it aroused in me and the wonder born of that excitement are things I will never forget. I had discovered something new in me and in the world, something very strange that made me stand breathless at the wonder of first love."

"For the first time I experienced blissful sleeplessness full of fantasies and delightful imaginings; and for the first time I knew how one person's face can obliterate all other faces, and invade the whole of existence. (p48)"

"I sense the absurdity and aimlessness of life as I stand bewildered, lost and weak before the tide of overpowering death. (p176)"

"When some people meet with a private or public catastrophe, the foundations of their faith are sometimes shaken, causing the pillars of their beliefs to come crashing down. But what an appalling existence when the tide of faith suddenly ebbs from the soul; what a frightful life when we lose certainty. (p177)"

"psychological problems are not confined to women. Men are afflicted with them too. If a man grows up in unnatural circumstances, or if his childhood is harsh, problems will continue to govern his conduct and attitudes all his life, and his case will be exactly the same as that of a woman." (p179)"

"Whenever a new literary venture makes me mentally and emotionally restless, I live in utter chaos. (p179)"

"Everywhere, people show a face that is new, but at the same time basically the same. People are a mass of feelings, inclinations and ambitions, fluctuating between triumphs and defeats, despair and hope. Each is created from the same material, with the same innate nature, descended from one human family tree. (p180)"

"I withdrew my eyes to take a look inside myself. My heart said: "This is life: every minute one is reborn, leaving behind a personality different from the present one"...the river of my life goes on and, after that destructive experience, I'll never allow an obstacle to stand in its way. (p180)"

"silence has its own aesthetic genius that bespeaks a thousand thoughts and emotions. (p181)"

"[[Happiness] is the child of the moment; it consumes its moment and vanishes with it; but prolonged suffering, although it eventually stops smarting like a live coal, changes into a profound grief where our pain is lulled to sleep until reawakened by a memory or aroused by a beautiful sight. (p181-2)"

"Anyone who has experienced disastrous friendships and endured treachery from friends, values a friendship that develops on the basis of trust, honesty and confidence. Reservation, apprehension and wariness do not breed true friendship. (p182)"

"Science and art are two separate tendencies, each representing a significant aspect of human enterprise. In general, art in all its branches is one of the vital manifestations of life and its true expression. It is futile to advocate repressing it for it is something that will never die until all life on earth is extinct. It is wrong for us Arabs to call a halt to literature, ignoring, or ignorant of the fact that future enterprises in any nation are directed and outlined first and foremost by its literature. The way to a conscious revolt and struggle for a free, decent life is paved by literature. Through literature and art, in general, pride is awakened, ambitions are enhanced, and a psychological boost given to the morale of the citizens of a nation...A nation whose literature has become dry and sterile cannot determine what is best for itself or for humanity, no matter how high it climbs on the ladder of scientific development. (p182-3)"

"The sweetest moments in life are those that transcend time and impose themselves on us, with all the life force in them. (p183)"

"which one of us, unless greatly lacking in responsiveness of heart and soul, can deny the beauty and aesthetic value art has so lavishly bestowed upon our lives? (p183)"

"A world in tumult... I search in it for a bright spot, but I hear nothing but the noise of radio broadcasts on every side. It is like a nightmare. (p187)"

"The power of the Arab reactionaries increases day by day, thanks to the flood of wealth in the arid sands...Arab progressivism is still a child, lacking method and organisation. (p187)"

"Dear refugees! How cruel for people to die as strangers in a strange land! Only in the land of our ancestors can we have a sense of growth in our humanity and of accord between ourselves and life around us. (p184-5)"

"I had a chance to be with Fadwa Tuqan or Samih al-Qasim, Taha Muhammad Ali, whom I adored—or just so many people who are now not available to us in the flesh, only through their words. I felt them as a wellspring of the spirit of Palestine, and the love and the care for Palestine—that is something that the media often finds easy to overlook. It’s just so insulting—versus the poetry which is so respectful, passionate, loving, and nostalgic."

"I believe the image is what can unite the world."

"My project is to rewrite the palestinian history through the eyes of women."

"I’m interested in finding the relation between war and the human being. The beauty of the small pleasures in life, subtle things."

"If you look for them, you can find hero’s everywhere, in ordinary people."

"Three cities run in my veins: Jerusalem, which I consider to be the place of my soul’s identity and existence; Jericho, the city that colors my heart and my passion; and Hebron, which I believe is the source of my creative imagination and my personal archive of popular folk tales, like those about Al-Shater Hassan."

"(about Fadwa Tuqan) one of the most important poets of Palestine. She wrote a book that is like the bible of the palestinian feminist movement. When she was 12 years old a boy threw flowers on her. Her brother saw it, and it was a big crisis for her family. They told her ”You will stay in the house until you die.” Her brother Ibrahim Toquan was one of the best poets in Palestine at the time. He didn’t let her out of the house, but he taught her to write. After 20 years of house arrest she left the house. She was a rebel, and she established the poetry of love and loneliness in Palestine."

"Lisa Suhair Majaj has one of the most necessary voices writing in the world today. Her exquisite poems sustain and hearten us, lift us out of the morass of deception and delusion. Her images and scenes offer up clean, brave truth. Here is the saving grace of honesty, dignity, and deep compassion. Here is a keen, elegant eye and a care wider than any single horizon."

"My writing process is generally a bit haphazard. I carry notebooks around to capture ideas, observations, phrases, images, chunks of freewriting. I shift to the computer to do more substantive writing and work on craft issues. I always generate multiple drafts of pieces (keeping all drafts in a separate folder), and often experiment with form in different versions to see what fits the text best."

"I find inspiration in anything that sparks attention and emotion and associations—an object, a news article, a natural scene, a sound, an odor. Going for walks sharpens my awareness as well as freeing my mind to wander. I think losing my parents so early, and keeping so many mementos from them around me in my daily life, helped shape my understanding of how meaning is embedded in the simplest of things. I use potholders my mother crocheted, keep my dad’s paperweight on my desk, and think of them daily."

"Now we walk out into the tunnel of days and a million memories rustle"

"till the moon rises, the night opens, and all the stars shine out."

"The sun will rise again tomorrow, vigilant and weary as hope."

"May we all fit together like this: trees, birds, sky, people, separate elements in a living portrait, outlines smoothed by the forgiving wash of lingering light. Whatever the skins we live in, the names we choose, the gods we claim or disavow, may we be like grains of sand on the beach at night: a hundred million separate particles creating a single expanse on which to lie back and study the stars. And may we remember the generosity of light: how it travels through unimaginable darkness, age after age, to light our small human night."