في مهرجانٍ شعريّ At a Poetry Festival

في مهرجانٍ شعريّ

أمام كل شاعر اسم بلاده
ولم يكن وراء اسمي سوى Jerusalem
 
كم هو مرعبٌ اسمك يا بلادي الصغيرة
التي لم يبق لي سوى اسمها
أنامُ فيه وأستيقظ
اسمها الذي مثل سفينةٍ لا أمل لها بالوصول
ولا بالرجوع...
 
لا تصل ولا ترجع
لا تصل ولا تغرق.
 

At a Poetry Festival

In front of each poet stands their country’s name 
And behind my name nothing but Jerusalem
 
How frightening your name is, my little country
For me, nothing remains of it except the name
I sleep and wake in it
Its name a boat with no hope of arrival
Or return
 
It neither arrives nor returns 
It neither arrives nor drowns
 

In A Festival of Poetry

The name of each poet’s country in front of him
And there is nothing behind my name except ‘Jerusalem’
 
How frightening your name is my little country
Of which remains nothing except the name
I sleep and wake up with it 
With its name which is like a boat with no hope of arrival
Or return…
 
It neither arrives nor returns
It neither arrives nor drowns.  
 

This poem seems to directly recount the experience of being stateless and having statelessness reinforced upon one – the designation that happens in the naming of poetry delegates at a festival. But poem rewards re-reading and was exciting to translate precisely because such directness is paired with a subtlety of feeling. The transition between the country’s name, the poet’s name and the name of his city in the first two lines, warn us of the slippage between terms. The poem aches with a doubleness of meanings, what it might mean for the name of a country to “arrive” or “return”, how poignantly employed the personal address can be: “my little country / For me, nothing remains of it”.

Edward Doegar, Commissioning Editor

Original Poem by

Najwan Darwish

Translated by

The Poetry Translation Workshop, Atef Alshaer with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Arabic

Country

Palestine