Two Poems by Saadi Youssef

Saadi Youssef Saadi Youssef

Two Poems by Saadi Youssef

By : Kevin Smith

Let’s Girdle This Country with Petrol and Dynamite1

How do I fend for the grass I used to chew, in the blurry haze of summer

Water,

and salt,

a taste of glue,

tang of spice,

and verdure?

How do I fend for a star that once fell onto our mosque’s minaret

so we hid ourselves from it at the bottom of the spiral staircase

and then hid with it

in the dry streams

in the path of dishdasha threads[2]

in the palm leaves and dirt

until a boy came to house the star in his chest?

How do I fend for the body of my wife?

How do I fend for the balcony of the house

even if it is rented?

How do I fend for the secret of an arrow-pierced heart

between two names

carved on a tree trunk?

How do I fend for the mothers of soldiers against strangers?

How do I fend for the cell in my brain, the sudden destruction . . .

How do I fend for “the picture”?

How do I defend?

How to attack/attack

         defend/attack

         attack/defend

                           defend/defend

defend

defend

defend? 

                        * 

We cannot yet speak of the geometry of barricades

or the gates of Winter Palace.

We cannot yet speak of equality

even if it were inherited like rugs.

We cannot yet speak of Marcel Khalifeh, except in musical notation.

We cannot yet know of Muzzafar al-Nawwab, except for his cocktail recipes.

We cannot yet say that Katib Yacine’s name is Katib.

We cannot yet remember the Republic of Wajda.

We cannot yet name Margaret Thatcher a woman of the KKK.

We cannot yet say that the French slaughtered us

under the trees of Ghouta.[3]

We cannot yet say that the Kurds are being killed like Native Americans.

We cannot yet say that Mussolini was Italian.

We cannot yet call to Marx: O you, the first hippie.

We cannot yet say that porcupines are thorny.

We cannot yet stand with Samih al-Qasim, except in the “preliminary” discussion.

We cannot yet put “alif” with “ba’”.

We cannot yet put “alif” with “mim.”[4]

We cannot yet put the mother and father together in a safe bed.

We cannot yet put “a” with “a” like this:

         aaaaaaah

aaaaaaah

We cannot yet put “m” with “m” like this:

                                                      m

                                                      m

                                                      mmm

                                                      mmm

                                                mmmmmh?

                                                             m

                                                             m

                                                             m

                                                             m

                                                             m

                                                             m

                                                             m

We cannot yet put “m” with “n” like this:

         who? who? who? who? who? who?

         who? who? who? who? who? who?[5]

We cannot yet write a eulogy for Iraq.

                        * 

Therefore, the road to Eden

is closed.

And the road to the cloud of pomegranate blossoms

is closed.

And the road to my house in the palm

is closed.

And the road which is still engulfed between Beirut and al-Sham[6]

is closed. 

              .   .   .   .   .   .

              .   .   .   .   .   .

Is the road which I came to take

to Bisan[7]

closed?

                        *

Must we scatter the poetry of our mothers

from Sinjar to Bani Saaf?[8]

Must we uncover

the first immigrant’s grave and the tenth and the hundredth and the thousandth

for us to discover?

Must we marry Jaziyya to a Jew

so Abu Zayd will worry?[9]

Must we eat snake flesh grilled?

Must we put our flesh under the bones?

Must we rip monotheism to shreds like fireworks?

Must we ask our Lord:

“Why have you created us this way?”

Must we sell our blood like we sold our pride?

Must we wait for the Knights of Khurasan alone?[10]

If so . . .

is it necessary to girdle this country with petrol and dynamite? 

                        *

O flower of flame, wonder not at the flame

your world has come to an end, stars have no place in it

O flower of flame, my people have extinguished their fires

with shame, merchants and revolutionaries become the same

O flower of flame, the sky must descend

like the stars at night, upon the house’s doorstep

O flower of flame . . . the village must ignite

its fires, and the masses march with torches 

                        *

There’s no use.

Saadi Youssef has been writing for thirty years.

Experimenting

and struggling

and despising the rulers.

He says: They kill the new poem . . .

But I ask you:

“Can you not find a more modern form than the mawwal?”[11]

There’s no use.

So?

We girdle this country with petrol and dynamite . . .

And?

[Translated from the Arabic by Kevin Michael Smith]


[1] I thank Noha Radwan for her various clarifications and suggestions when translating this poem.

[2] A dishdasha is a traditional ankle-length robe worn in Iraq and many of the Arab Gulf countries.

[3] Ghouta is a collection of farms in Rif Dimashq, close to the eastern part of Damascus, Syria. Tragically, it was the site of both a French colonial massacre in the interwar period and the infamous recent chemical attacks by Syrian regime forces in 2013, killing hundreds.

[4] The first two letters of the Arabic alphabet, “alif” and “baa,” combine to make the Arabic word for father, aab. Similarly, “alif” with the Arabic letter “m,” meem, make mother, or um. Youssef here characteristically disassociates letters otherwise connected in Arabic script, producing unexpected meanings from seemingly random alphabetic juxtapositions, such as the “mother” and “father” in bed together in the next line, or the following, slightly annoyed inquisitive expression “mmmh?”

[5] The Arabic letters for “m” and “n” together make the interrogative pronoun “who?” (man?).

[6] In Arabic, al-Sham refers to the region of Greater Syria, which, following the cartographic redrawing of former Ottoman Empire territorial boundaries under British and French colonial rule in the early to mid 20th century, and the subsequent national “independence” of these territories after WWII, now includes the countries of Syria and Lebanon as well as parts of northern Jordan.

[7] Jabal Bisan is a mountain peak in the southwest of Syria, directly north of Amman, Jordan.

[8] Sinjar is a town in the Nineveh province of northwestern Iraq, with a majority Yazidi population, and neighboring Syrian Kurdistan. Bani Saaf is a coastal town in northwestern Algeria.

[9] A reference to al-sirah al-hilaliyya, or the al-Hilali epic, a long poem recited beginning in the 14th century.

[10] Reference unknown.

[11] The mawwal (pl., singular mawaliyya) is a classical Arabic poetic form stemming from the 6th century CE. In its earliest usage, it featured four monorhyme lines in the basit meter. It is one of the most commonly used and therefore traditionally entrenched of the classical poetic forms.

Helen Zughaib: Arab Spring (Unfinished Journeys)

Late last year York College Galleries in Pennsylvania hosted Arab Spring (Unfinished Journeys), the solo exhibition of artist Helen Zughaib.

The exhibition’s featured paintings, installations, and conceptual works were created between 2008 and 2016. In these years, Zughaib watched the 2008/2009 attack on Gaza from afar, responding with scenes of grief-stricken, weeping women paralyzed beneath the fall of bombs. She also returned to her native Lebanon for the first time since fleeing war-torn Beirut in the 1970s, and produced a series of text-based paintings. Later she was hopeful when uprisings swept across North Africa and the Middle East, cloaking her figures in spiraling floral patterns; but soon began to document the number of Syrian civilians killed since 2012 with a series of public performances and related images. More recently, she has created a number of conceptual works that describe the difficulties of the mass migration that has swept across Europe from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, particularly for children.

Narrated by the artist, the short film below (produced by York College Galleries) takes viewers into Arab Spring (Unfinished Journeys), revealing what inspired many of the included works and how concepts and forms aim to record the mounting devastation of this time.

Thanks to Matthew Clay-Robison, director of York College Galleries, for allowing Jadaliyya to feature this film.  

Helen Zughaib at York College from Jadaliyya on Vimeo.