The Butterfly's Burden | Mahmoud Darwish | Stunning translation and beautiful poetry

The Butterfly's Burden | Mahmoud Darwish | Consuming Oneself in the "We" of the "I"

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The Butterfly's Bu...

	The Butterfly's Burden Mahmoud Darwish Copper Canyon Press, 2006 - 327 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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"Mahmoud Darwish is the Essential Breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging, exquisitely tuned singer of images that invoke, link, and shine a brilliant light into the world's whole heart. What he speaks has been embraced by readers around the world-his in an utterly necessary voice, unforgettable once discovered."-Naomi Shihab Nye

Mahmoud Darwish is the leading poet in the Arab world, an artist and activist who attracts thousands to his public readings.

The Butterfly's Burden combines the complete text of Darwish's two most recent full-length volumes, linked by the stunning memoir-witness poem "A State of Siege." Love poems, sonnets, journal-like distillations, and interlaced lyrics balance old literary traditions with new forms, highlighting loving reflections alongside bitter longing.

From Sonnet [V]

I touch you as a lonely violin touches the suburbs of the faraway place.
Patiently the river asks for its share of the drizzle.
And, bit by bit, a tomorrow passing in poems approaches
so I carry faraway's land and it carries me on the road.

Mahmoud Darwish is the author of 30 books of poetry and prose, as well as the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. He has worked as a journalist, was director of the Palestinian Research Center, and lived in exile until his return to Palestine in 1996. He has received many international awards for his poetry.

Translator Fady Joudah is a physician based in Houston, Texas, and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson. He is active in Doctors Without Borders.

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Stunning translation and beautiful poetry

Fady Joudah has done a stunning translation to Darwish's fine work. It's just beautiful. I'm reading the book over and over since I purchased it, and Darwish's work is just amazing especially in his long poem "a state of siege."

I advice you to read this book if you're interested in poetry in general, because Darwish is a world poet and he represents humans everywhere.

Consuming Oneself in the "We" of the "I"

I have waited for this book like a nomad in the desert longs for a night to set off for his journey, like the sea aches for its returning wave, like a poet who wants the reader to embrace his poem. Now I have it in front of me "The Butterfly's Burden", a journey of, and through, voice.There is an "I" that overflows from "you", a dialogue between masculine and feminine, prose and poetry. There is a question how to carry the "I" of the "we" without betraying one perception for the other. It's singing about love as a private exile.

Low Sky
by Mahmoud Darwish

There's a love walking on two silken feet
happy with its estrangement in the streets,
a love small and poor made wet by a passing rain
that it overflows onto passerby:
My gifts are larger than I am
eat my wheat
and drink my wine
my sky is on my shoulders and my earth is yours...

Did you smell the jasmine's radiant blood
and think of me
then wait with me for a green-tailed bird
that has no name?

There's a poor love starring at the river
in surrender to summoning: Where do you run to
seahorse?
Soon the sea will suck you in
so walk leisurely to your chosen death,
O seahorse!

Were you as two embankments for me
and was the place as it should be
light-footed on your memories?
What songs do you love
what songs? The ones
that speak about love thirst,
or about a time that has passed?

There's a poor love, one-sided
and quite serene it doesn't break
your select day's crystal
and doesn't light a fire in a cold moon
in your bed,
you don't sense it when you cry from an apprehension,
which might replace it,
you don't know what to feel when you embrace
yourself between your arms!
Which nights do you want, which nights
and what colour are those eyes that you dream
with when you dream?
There is a poor love, and two-sided
it diminishes the number of those in despair
and lifts the pigeons' throne on both sides.
You must, then, by yourself lead
this swift spring to the one you love.
Which time do you want, which time
that I may become its poet, just like that: whenever
a woman goes to her secret in the evening
she finds a poet walking in her thoughts.
Whenever a poet dives into himself
he finds a woman undressing before his poem...

Which exile do you want?
Will you come with me, or walk alone
in your name as an exile that adorns exile
with its glitter?

There's love passing through us,
without us noticing,
and neither it knows nor do we know
why a rose in an ancient wall makes us fugitives
and why a girl at the bus stop cries,
bites on an apple then laughs and cries:
Nothing,nothing more
than a bee passing through my blood...

There's a poor love, it contemplates
at length the passerby, and chooses
the youngest moon among them:You are in need
of a lower sky,
be my friend and the sky will expand
for the selfishness of two who do not know
to whom they should give their flowers...
Maybe it meant me,maybe
it meant us and we didn't notice

There is a love...The Butterfly's Burden

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