Keys - Fatma Kandil

Recently I came across the 2001 anthology 'The Poetry of Arab Women', edited by Nathalie Handal. I was a little surprised to realise that it had not once crossed my mind that hitherto, all the Arabic poetry I'd read had been written by men, and also that I had not once reflected on this fact.

So, here is the first of hopefully several poems by Arab women to be posted here.

According to the anthology,

"Egyptian women writers have always played an active role in the growth and evolution of the literary scene, and they continue to do so; and poetry written by Egyptian women poets continues to flourish."

Fatma Kandil was born in Cairo in 1958. A well-known new generation poet and short story writer, she also edits a journal of literary criticism, Fosoul (فصول).

المفاتيح

المفاتيح التي لا تفتح الأبواب
هي المفاتيح التي تغلق الأبواب
والمفاتيح المشنوقة في السلاسل
لا تملك إلا دراما الرنين
لكن المفتاح الذي يموت في جيبي
يذكرني بأنه قد آن الوقت لكي أكون إمرأة عاقلة ، تسكن بيتا
بلا مفاتيح . . . . بلا أبواب

The keys that don't open doors
are the keys that lock them,
and keys tangled in chains
have nothing but the drama of jingling.
But the key that dies in my pocket
reminds me it is time
that i became a reasonable woman
who lives in a house
without keys, without doors.


Original translation by Khaled Mattawa, with revision by readers of this blog.

Ayat al-Qurmezi

Ayat al-Qurmezi is a 20 year-old Bahraini student recently jailed for a year for reciting poems critical of Bahrain's rulers. Read more about it here or watch her at work below:

On Wishes - Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish is one of the most well-known Arab poets. He was born in 1941 in Palestine, in the village of Birwa, which was destroyed in 1948. His family then settled in Galilee. He received little formal education. His first volume of poetry, 'Birds without Wings', was published in 1960. In 1971 Darwish left the country and moved first to Cairo, becoming a contributor to the newspaper Al-Ahram.The political question of the Palestinian homeland forms the subject-matter of most of Darwish's poetry. As Denys Johnson-Davies explains in the introduction to 'The Music of Human Flesh', a compilation of translated Darwish poems, 'the key to an understanding of his poetry is that it consists largely of an extended and desperate love affair with his lost homeland. However unsatisfactory and painful the love affair, however hopeless of consummation, he has no choice but to continue with it.'

Don’t say to me:      Would I were a seller of bread in Algiers      That I might sing with a rebel. Don’t say to me:      Would I were a herdsman in the Yemen      That I might sing to the shudderings of time. Don’t say to me:      Would I were a cafe waiter in Havana      That I might sing the victories of sorrowing women. Don’t say to me:      Would I worked as a young laborer in Aswan      That I might sing to the rocks. My friend, The Nile will not flow into the Volga, Nor the Congo or the Jordan into the Euphrates. Each river has its source, its course, its life. My friend, our land is not barren. Each land has its time for being born, Each dawn a date with a rebel.

عن الأمنيات لا تقل لي: ليتني بائع خبر في الجزائر لأغني مع ثائر! لا تقل لي: ليتني راعي مواشٍ في اليمن لأغني لانتفاضات الزمن لا تقل لي: ليتني عامل مقهى في هافانا لأغني لانتصارات الحزانى! لا تقل لي: ليتني أعمل في أسوان حمّالاً صغير لأغني للصخور يا صديقي! لن يصب النيل في الفولغا ولا الكونغو، ولا الأردن، في نهر الفرات! كل نهر، وله نبع... ومجرى... وحياة! يا صديقي!... أرضنا ليست بعاقر كل أرض، ولها ميلادها كل فجر، وله موعد ثائر!

Translation by Denys Johnson-Davies

The poem was set to music in the 1980s by a Palestinian group, Sabreen.

My Angry Cat - Nizar Qabbani (1961)

You're repeating yourself for the twentieth time. Is there another man in my life? Yes. Yes. What did you think? Even graveyards have visitors. There are, my dear sir, a lot of men out there, and no garden is ever devoid of birds. You're just an experience I had, and here I am, tired and bored from this experience, out from under your spell. I'm cured of all my weakness and gullibility. Niceties do, after all, always end. You love me! There you go again, dredging up all that ancient history. And since when did you ever show the slightest interest in me outside the contour of my hips? Where does this sudden gush of love come from? I was never anything more than a forsaken chair among your expensive furniture, a garden you chose to raze without shame or repentance. Why are you staring at my breasts as if you owned them? And why do you weep as if you stood before a lost kingdom? Your glorious kingdom, dear sir, has just crumbled. There. I've settled my score in an instant. You tell me now who's losing the game. I opened myself to you like the Garden of Eden, gave you all the sweet fruit and green grass you desired. Today I offer you neither heaven nor hell. This is what you get for acting the ungrateful. You faithless. If you'd only treated me like a human being - just once - this other man wouldn't exist.

قطــــــتي الغضبى للمرة العشرين ..... كررتها "هل في حياتي رجل اخر ؟؟" نعم ..نعم .. فهل تصورتني مقبرة ليس لها زائر مااكثر الرجال ..ياسيدي لاروضة إلا لها طائر تجربة كانت .. وها أنني نجوت من سحرك ياساحر شفيت من ضعفي ومن طيبتي فطيبة النفس لها اخر تحبني !! ليتك ماقلتها هذا حديث غابر..غابر منذ متى ؟ اصبحت تهتم بي منذ متى هذا الهواى الغامر ؟ هل كنت إلا مقعدا مهملا يضمه اثاثك الفاخر؟ مزرعة نهبت خيراتها لاذمة تنهي ولا زاجر ترنو الى مفاتني مثلما يرنو الى امواله التاجر يا أيها الباكي على ملكه لقد تداعى ملكك الزاهر حسابي القديم .. صفيته بلحظة . فمن بنا الخاسر ؟ كانت لك الجنات مفتوحة ثمارها .. وعشبها الناضر واليوم .. لا نار ولا جنة هذا جزاء الكفر ياكافر لو كنت انسانا معي مرة  ماكان هذا الرجل الاخر

Translation by Nayef al-Kalali