Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish is a prominent and innovative Palestinian poet recognized for his contributions to contemporary Arabic poetry. His evolution is evident through his use of metaphors, symbols, and historical, religious, and mythical references, showcasing his extensive cultural background and deep connection to human issues. He is lauded as one of the foremost literary figures of resistance, with his poetry encapsulating the struggles of his people against Israeli occupation. This earned him the title of the Palestinian poet of wounds. Over his poetic career, which spanned more than forty years, Darwish authored over thirty collections of poetry and prose, alongside eight books. His work has been translated into multiple foreign languages.
Early Life and Background
Born on March 13, 1941, in Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish grew up in the village of Al-Birwa in the Galilee. His family was displaced to Lebanon in 1948 due to the Israeli occupation during the Nakba. After a brief return to live in the village of Deir al-Asad, his family settled in Al-Jadida, close to Al-Birwa, their original village. Darwish completed his primary education in Deir al-Asad and his secondary education in Kafr Yasif. He later worked as an editor and translator for Al-Ittihad newspaper and was the editor of Al-Jadeed magazine, after joining the Israeli Communist Party.
In 1961, Darwish was arrested multiple times due to his political views and poetry. Subsequently, he left Palestine, moving to Moscow and then to Cairo, before settling in Lebanon, where he became the head of the Palestinian Research Center and the editor of Palestinian Affairs magazine. He also served as president of the Palestinian Writers and Journalists Association. In 1981, Darwish founded the cultural magazine Al-Karmel in Beirut. In 1988, he was elected to the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and was close to the late President Yasser Arafat, acting as his advisor. Darwish personally drafted the Palestinian Declaration of Independence proclaimed in Algeria in 1988. He later resigned from the PLO in protest of the Oslo Accords, returning to Palestine to live in Ramallah. Darwish passed away in the United States on August 13, 2008, after heart surgery and was laid to rest in the Cultural Palace in Ramallah.
Notable Poems by Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish is renowned for numerous powerful poems. The following are excerpts from some of his most celebrated works:
Birds Die in Galilee
– We shall meet again in a while
After a year
After two years
And a generation..
And in the camera,
Twenty gardens
And Galilee’s birds.
And they went searching, beyond the sea,
For a new meaning of truth.
– My homeland is a clothesline
For the bloody handkerchiefs
In every minute
And I stretched out on the shore
Sand.. and palms.
She does not know
Oh Rita! We have offered you, death and I,
The secret of the withering joy at the customs gate
And we renewed ourselves, death and I,
At your window.
And I and death are two faces
Why are you fleeing from my face now?
Why are you fleeing?
And why are you fleeing from that
Which makes wheat the eyelashes of the earth, that which
Makes the volcano another face of jasmine?
Only her silence followed me at night
As it stretched in front of the door
Like the street.. like the old neighborhood
Let it be what you wish, oh Rita, let silence be an axe
And frames of stars
Or a climate for the gestation of the tree!
I sip the kiss
From the edge of the knives,
Come let us belong to the massacre!..
Transients in an Intermittent Discourse
O you who pass between the transient words
Take your names and leave
And take your hours from our time, and depart
Take what you want from the blue of the sea and the sand of memory
And take what you want from the images to know
That you will never know
How a stone from our land builds the roof of the sky…
O you who pass between the transient words
From you, the sword – and from us, our blood
From you, the steel and fire – and from us, our flesh
From you, another tank – and from us, a stone
From you, a gas bomb – and from us, the rain
And upon us what you have of sky and air
So take your share of our blood and leave
And enter a festive dinner dance.. and depart
And we, must guard the flowers of the martyrs!
And we, must live as we desire!
O you who pass between the transient words
Like bitter dust, pass wherever you wish but
Do not pass among us like flying insects
For we have in our land what we work with
And we have wheat to nurture and water with the dew of our bodies
And we have what does not please you here:
A stone… or gravel
So take the past, if you wish, to the antiquities market
And return the skeleton of the hoopoe, if you wish,
On a ceramic plate.
For we have what does not please you: we have a future
And we have in our land what we work with
O you who pass between the transient words
Stack your illusions in an abandoned pit, and leave
And return the clock hands to the sanctity of the sacred calf
Or to the timing of the music of a gun
For we have what does not please you here, so depart
And we have what you do not have: a bleeding homeland and a bleeding people
A homeland suitable for forgetfulness or memory
O you who pass between the transient words
It is time for you to leave
And settle wherever you wish but do not settle among us
It is time for you to depart
And die wherever you wish but do not die among us
For we have in our land what we work with
And we have the past here
And we have the voice of the first life
And we have the present, and the present, and the future
And we have the world here… and the hereafter
So leave our land
From our fields.. from our sea
From our wheat.. from our salt.. from our wound
From everything, and leave
From the vocabulary of memory