How to read this presentation

WELCOME TO MY PRESENTATION

PLEASE ROLL DOWN, ALL THE WAY TO THE FIRST BLOG

 

Summary and References

References

Books

Dor, M., Goldber,B (.Ed). (1977). After the First Rain, Israeli Poems on War and Peace, Tacoma Park:  Dryad Press.

Amichai, Y. (1988). Poems of Jerusalem, a Bilingual Edition, New York: Harper & Row.

From the internet:

Articles

 Neisser, Y. (2000). The Dialogue of Poetry: Palestinian mid Israeli Poets Writing Through Conflict and Peace. The importance of communication through poetry to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. The Palestine-Israel Journal Vol. 7 Nos 1&2. Retrieved from: http://www.pij.org/details.php?id=996

McRobie, H. (2009, January). Amichai to Darwish: Palestinian and Israeli writers on conflict. The Guardian.. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/09/poetry-gaza

WWW Document – Gutman, H. Professor of English at the University of Vermont.

Retrieved from: http://www.uvm.edu/~sgutman/Amichai.htm

WWW Document - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Amichai

WWW Document - poets.org

Retrieved from: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/yehuda-amichai

Poem hunter

Retrieved from: http://www.poemhunter.com/yehuda-amichai/

Jewish virtual library

Retrieved from: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/amichai.html

Poetry soup

Retrieved from: http://www.poetrysoup.com/poet/yehuda_amichai

Yehuda Amichai, poet laureate of Jerusalem

Retrieved from: http://www.gojerusalem.com/article/321/Yehuda-Amichai_-poet-laureate-of-Jerusalem/

The Jewish Agency for Israel

Retrievedfrom:http://jafi.org/JewishAgency/English/jewish%20education/Compelling%20Content/Eye%20on%20Israel/Gallery%20of%20People%20%28Biographies%29/Amichai%20Yehuda

Boeliem, the Complete Reference to Israeli Stamps from 1948 and Onward.

Retrieved from: http://www.boeliem.com/content/2001/649.html

Darwish reading his poem

Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjnZgWUe__c

Amichai readings: My Father.

Retrieved from: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14339528/avi.mp3

I Don’t Know if History repeats Itself.

Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBg3LfsiQGY

Poem Hunter

Retrieved from: www.poemhunter.com

Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia

Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Amichai

Best Poems Encyclopedia

Retrieved from: http://www.best-poems.net/yehuda_amichai/index.html

Famous Poets and Poems.com

 Retrieved from: http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/yehuda_amichai/poems

Final words

Many poems were presented in these pages. Many words of anger, anguish, despair and even hope. Each side in this long conflict has his reasons to believe that he is right and that justice is on his side. I thought that this following poem is the best answer and the best way to conclude this presentation. It is presented here in his original Hebrew version and of course the English translation,  the Arabic one is done with Google translate so I have no clue how correct it is.

המקום שבו אנו צודקים/יהודה עמיחי

מן המקום שבו אנו צודקים
לא יצמחו לעולם
פרחים באביב.

המקום שבו אנו צודקים
הוא קשה ורמוס
כמו חצר.

אבל ספקות ואהבות עושים
את העולם לתחוח
כמו חפרפרת,כמו חריש.

ולחישה תשמע במקום
שבו היה הבית
אשר נחרב.

المكان الذي كنا على حق
يهودا عميحاي

من المكان الذي كنا على حق
والزهور تنمو أبدا
في الربيع.

المكان الذي كنا على حق
من الصعب وتداس
مثل الفناء.

ولكن الشكوك ويحب
حفر في العالم
مثل الخلد، المحراث.

وسوف يسمع الهمس في المكان
حيث دمر
بيت قفت مرة واحدة.

The Place Where We Are Right

Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

"Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance" - Mahmoud Darwish, 1941-2008

 

As Palestinian and Israeli negotiators continue to engage in a long, difficult dialogue about the final status between Israel and a new Palestinian state, I would like to discuss a very different form of dialogue between the two peoples — the dialogue of poetry. Because behind all the signing of agreements and hand-shaking and posturing and red lines and green lines, there is the bottom line: the emotions and experiences of the people.

I believe that poetry, by its nature, is a form of dialogue, and that poems are attempts to communicate. And in the Palestinian-Israeli arena, the poet’s need to communicate across political and cultural boundaries is particularly intense. Yehuda Amichai has acknowledged: “I have no illusions. It’s quite difficult for poets to communicate with one another in a society that is politically torn apart the way ours is.” Nevertheless, because of the geographical, linguistic, and political barriers inhibiting communication between Palestinians and Israelis, many poets, including Amichai, have used poetry as a means to convey messages to “the other side,” or to explore their feelings about the conflict.

Mahmoud Darwish

 

Ayman Agbaria

(Israel, 1968) 

Debate

— Our bodies are better.
— Our bodies are more precious.
— Our blood is finer.
— Our blood is sweeter.
— Our dead are martyrs, yours are murdered.
— Your dead will become earth, ours will be higher.
— I am the victim and you are the killer.
— I will remain and you will vanish.
Like this, the generals speak
Like this, they debated:
Which is thicker?
The tear of a mother or the powder of a bullet?

***

The late Syrian love poet Nizar Qabbani exemplifies commitment to the Palestinian cause by paying homage to the “boys of the Intifada” in his renowned work of prose and free verse, The Trilogy of the Children of the Stones:

...What matters
about the children of
the stones is that they
have brought us
rain after centuries of
thirst,
brought us the sun after centuries
of darkness,
brought us hope after centuries of
defeat...
...........................................................
...they
have decided to fight
as they wish, live as
they wish, die
as they wish.

O children of Gaza,
teach us some of what you know,
Teach us to be men....

***

Nizar Qabbani

I wept until my tears were dry
I prayed until the candles flickered
I knelt until the floor creaked
I asked about Mohammed and Christ
Oh Jerusalem, the fragrance of prophets
The shortest path between earth and sky
Oh Jerusalem, the citadel of laws
A beautiful child with fingers charred
and downcast eyes
You are the shady oasis passed by the Prophet
Your streets are melancholy
Your minarets are mourning
You, the young maiden dressed in black
Who rings the bells in the Nativity
On Saturday morning?
Who brings toys for the children
On Christmas eve?
Oh Jerusalem, the city of sorrow
A big tear wandering in the eye
Who will halt the aggression
On you, the pearl of religions?
Who will wash your bloody walls?
Who will safeguard the Bible?
Who will rescue the Quran?
Who will save Christ?
Who will save man?
Oh Jerusalem my town
Oh Jerusalem my love
Tomorrow the lemon trees will blossom
And the olive trees will rejoice
Your eyes will dance
The migrant pigeons will return
To your sacred roofs
And your children will play again
And fathers and sons will meet
On your rosy hills
My town
The town of peace and olives.

***

Najwan Darwish

(Palestine, 1978) 

 

JERUSALEM

When I leave you I turn to stone
and when I come back I turn to stone

I name you Medusa
I name you the older sister of Sodom and Gomorrah
you the baptismal basin that burned Rome

The murdered hum their poems on the hills
and the rebels reproach the tellers of their stories
while I leave the sea behind and come back
to you, come back
by this small river that flows in your despair

I hear the reciters of the Quran and the shrouders of corpses
I hear the dust of the condolers
I am not yet thirty, but you buried me, time and again
and each time, for your sake
I emerge from the earth
So let those who sing your praises go to hell
those who sell souvenirs of your pain
all those who are standing with me, now, in the picture

I name you Medusa
I name you the older sister of Sodom and Gomorrah
you the baptismal basin that still burns

When I leave you I turn to stone
When I come back I turn to stone

***

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941-9 August 2008):
O those who pass between fleeting words, 1988: translator unknown

O those who pass between fleeting words
It is time for you to be gone
Live wherever you like, but do not live among us
It is time for you to be gone
Die wherever you like, but do not die among us
............................................................................
So leave our country
Our land, our sea
Our wheat, our salt, our wounds
Everything, and leave
the memories of memory
O those who pass between fleeting words!

***

Al-Qassem’s “Atillu wa Asghu”

We will teach you the art of struggle
and the meaning of battle
and the lesson of peace

 

Palestinian poetry



 Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish

 First impression

Mahmoud Darwish

(Palestine, 1941–2008) 

Mahmoud Darwish has published over two dozen collections of poetry as well as several prose works. He is both a popular and a controversial voice in Palestinian poetry. His early material was generally in a classical Arabic form, while in the 1970s he adopted free verse and moved into a more personal style. His country, and its politics, have always been major themes in Darwish’s poetry. When reviewing his recent collection The Butterfly’s Burden, Fiona Simpson suggested that “the extraordinary plasticity of Darwish’s imagery allows him to create a continual interplay between the figures of home and beloved, presence and absence”. 

This sense of presence and absence is tied to his personal relationship with Israel. Born in Galilee, Darwish fled the country after 1948 only to return a few years later. He left the country for several decades in the early 1970s, having had his Israeli citizenship revoked. He edited various magazines throughout his career, and was labelled a ´resistance poet´ for some of his more provocative writing. A number of his pieces have been set to music, or even film, and he was closely involved with both the Rakah (Israel’s socialist party) and later the Palestine Liberation Organisation. In fact, he even wrote a manifesto intended as a form of independence declaration for the PLO, although he resigned after the 1993 Oslo Accord.
Widely recognised as a major figure in Palestinian poetry, Darwish has received numerous international accolades. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1983, and the Lannan Foundation awarded him the Lannan cultural Freedom Prize in 2001. Three years later he was the principal laureate of the Prince Claus Fund. In 1993 he was given the medal of a  Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres in France.

Darwish passed away in 2008.

Listen 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjnZgWUe__c

I Come From There

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....

Palestinian Poetry

While the choice of an Israeli poet to present here was very obvious to me I had a much harder time picking the poet and the poems when it came to the Palestinian part. First because it was new to me and also because as stated before its political inclination. So instead of one poet I chose few and made an effort to locate poems that I felt reflected a possibility of a dialogue. 

A lot of the information came from two source;

  - Amichai to Darwish: Palestinian and Israeli writers on conflict ,

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/09/poetry-gaza

 - The Dialogue of Poetry: Palestinian mid Israeli Poets Writing Through Conflict and Peace

http://www.pij.org/index.php

  The poems presents then are only a small, rather random representation.

 

 

 

 

If I forget thee, Jerusalem

In the following two poems, Palestinian poet Mu’in Bseiso and Israel’s Yehuda Amichai both play on the words of Psalm 137 (“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,/let my right hand forget...”)1 as a means to express their love for the land:

If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem

 Yehuda Amichai

If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Then let my right be forgotten.
Let my right be forgotten, and my left remember.
Let my left remember, and your right close
And your mouth open near the gate.

I shall remember Jerusalem
And forget the forest -- my love will remember,
Will open her hair, will close my window,
will forget my right,
Will forget my left.

If the west wind does not come
I'll never forgive the walls,
Or the sea, or myself.
Should my right forget
My left shall forgive,
I shall forget all water,
I shall forget my mother.

If I forget thee, Jerusalem,
Let my blood be forgotten.
I shall touch your forehead,
Forget my own,
My voice change
For the second and last time
To the most terrible of voices --
Or silence.
 ***

The God of Urushalim2

Let my right hand forget me,
let my beloved’s eyes,
my brother and my only friend
all forget me.

If I remember not
that the God of Urushalim
lies heavily on [the chest of]
our land,
squeezing honey and milk
out of drops of our blood,
to live
and hatch out monsters. 

I thought that it will be interesting to start the part of the presentation about Palestinian poetry with these poems. In these poems, both poets express a deep, personal connection to Jerusalem, associating the city with their own blood, their bodies, and their closest family members. Both give a sense of danger and imminent pain at the possibility of losing or forgetting Jerusalem, and both imply that the act of “forgetting” or not fighting for Jerusalem would be a disgrace to their brothers and mothers.

Nevertheless, although the two poets use the same metaphor to address the same theme, each writes in the context of his own society, culture, and poetic tradition. Amichai, born in Germany and raised as an Orthodox Jew, has lived most of his life in Jerusalem. In his youth, he served in the British Army and in Israel’s Palmach force in the 1948 war. In “If I Forget Thee,” Amichai uses Psalm 137 as a lens through which to reflect on his own behavior and his personal relationship to Jerusalem, the land, and God. He takes the burden of forgetting on himself with the lines “Should my right forget.../I shall forget all water/I shall forget my mother.” He intimates that if he should ever forget his allegiance to Jerusalem, he will suffer personally and will lose any sense of himself, even his own voice.

Bseiso, on the other hand, uses the psalm to criticize Israeli oppression and to remind the Palestinian people of their obligation to fight for Jerusalem. Bseiso grew up in Gaza in the 1930s and 1940s, but because of his political activism, spent most of his life in exile in other Arab countries until his death in 1982. In his poem, Bseiso implores his people to remember that the “God of Urushalim lies heavily” on the land of Palestine, “squeezing honey and milk” out of Palestinian blood. His use of the term “God of Urushalim” to represent Israel is heavily ironic, suggesting that the Israelis use their religion to justify controlling the land and oppressing the Palestinian people. He plays on the biblical description of the Land of Canaan (now Israel) as the “land of milk and honey,” to accuse the Israelis of building their homeland on the suffering of Palestinians — “out of drops of our blood.” The poem also implies that any Palestinian who does not “remember” and fight against the “God of Urushalim” will lose his right hand, or his identity, and everyone that he loves.