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Poetry Dare: Dreaming with Darwish

By Sandra Heska King 22 Comments

Darwish Follow Your Dream Poetry Dare

Editor’s note: Amidst all the mischief, merriment and mirth, at Tweetspeak Poetry we’re in the business of becoming, and of helping people become who they really are. We pay attention, and sometimes we pick up on cues that tell us where a person might be dreaming to go. And sometimes when that happens, we issue a Poetry Dare. Recently, we challenged Sandra Heska King to a Follow Your Dream Dare. We’ll let Sandra tell you about it.

____________

As part of a new Poetry Dare, I have a daily date with the Palestinian national poet, Mahmoud Darwish, and The Butterfly’s Burden—three books of dream-like poetry in translation.

This dare’s a doozy in two parts: in addition to reading at least one poem a day from this collection, there’s an add-on challenge of actually writing one to three dream poems a week plus four traditional form poems—a sestina, a villanelle, a pantoum, and a rondeau. There’s not a sonnet in the crew, but I wonder if there’s extra credit for tackling one, like maybe a pot of jasmine perfume or a packet of pomegranate tea.

While I wait for my copy of The Butterfly’s Burden to arrive, I spend some time trying to learn a little about the poet.

Darwish was born in Galilee in 1942. When Israeli forces assaulted his village in 1948, he his family fled to Lebanon. They returned as “present-absentees, ” and lived more or less as second-class citizens. He ultimately spent much of his life in exile and died in Texas in 2008, after heart surgery.

He was only a year older than I am now.

Without the dare, I don’t think I would have pursued this poet from a far country and a different culture, someone who once aligned himself with the Israeli Communist Party and the PLO. I would be all the poorer.

In an interview, Darwish said he fell in love with poetry when he was a child. He didn’t understand it, but the sounds alone gave him a love for language. Because he was physically weak, he began to dream of becoming a poet and later realized the power of poetry. He was imprisoned for his words the first time when he was only 16.

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye called him “the Essential Breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging, exquisitely tuned singer of images that invoke, link and shine a brilliant light into the world’s whole heart . . . ”

I think I could fall in love.

When the book arrives, I page through the table of contents. The first section, “The Stranger’s Bed, ” is a book of love poetry and includes a poem titled “A Lesson from Kama Sutra.” I will myself not to blush and continue to thumb through the pages. The physical shape of the English translation of each poem matches the shape of the Arabic original, and this fascinates me. I notice repeated phrases like “Let’s go as we are” and “let’s be kind.” Several stanzas end with ellipses as if they don’t really have an ending, and some stanzas end without any punctuation at all.

Who will say to me now: Let go of yesterday and dream with all
of your subconscious?
My freedom sits beside me, with me, and on
my knees like a house cat. It stares at me and at
what you might have left of yesterday for me: your lilac
shawl, videotapes of dancing among wolves, and a jasmine
necklace around the algae of your heart …

—from “A Cloud from Sodom”

I have no idea what any of that means—yet. But I’m thinking of what I need to let go of in order to dream with all my subconscious.

Often I’m unsure if Darwish is writing about a person or a place, a man or a woman, himself or someone else, poetry or prose, or the longing for his homeland. His words seem layered and lush like a coconut dream cake.

Both of your silks are hot. But the flute should be patient
And polish a sonnet, when you two descend on me as a lovely mystery,
Like a meaning on the verge of nakedness, incapable of arrival
And of long waiting in front of speech, it chooses me as a threshold.

Of poetry, I love the spontaneity of prose and the hidden image
Without a moon for rhetoric: when you walk barefoot rhyme abandons
Copulating speech, and meter breaks in the climax of experience

A bit of night near you is enough for me to get out of my Babylon
And into my essence—my other. No garden for me within me
And all of you is you. And what overflows from you is “I” the free and kind.

—from “Sonnet III”

“’The Stranger’s Bed’, ” writes the translator in the preface, “is a journey of and through voice . . . There is dialogue between masculine and feminine, prose and poetry, self and its other . . . and the sonnets . . . develop the spine that gives the book its sway as man and woman, poetry and prose, commune with each other.” She goes on to say, “Darwish does not disengage the act of writing from its subject matter. Instead, he performs a twinning. The beloved is not exclusively a woman or a land, self or other, but also poem and prose.”

Don’t skip the translator’s preface to this collection because it’s beautiful in its own right and insightful, even luminous,  as Glynn Young would not say.

This one sounds like a dream:

A pine tree in your right hand. A willow in your left. This
is summer: one of your hundred gazelles has surrendered to the dew
and slept on my shoulder, near one of your regions, and what
if the wolf notices, and a forest burns in the distance

—from Sonnet VI

I’ve pulled out Tania Runyan’s How to Read a Poem again. She reminds me I don’t have to analyze a poem but that I can experience it with all my senses. I can simply enter it and live with it and make it part of me. I think I’ll go with that.

And look behind you
to find the dream, go
to any east or west that exiles you more,
and keeps me one step farther from my bed
and from one of my sad skies. The end
is beginning’s sister, go and you’ll find what you left
here, waiting for you.

—from “I Waited for No One”

True to the call of this dare, I try my hand at poems, like this dream poem tinted in purple:

I enter the purple forest,
padding a path
carpeted with golden birch leaves.
A soft scent rises—
Evening in Paris
Or is it Chanel #5?
I step over puddingstones,
take care not to trip over roots.
Shoulder-high purple ferns
line my way, wave in the wind
like palm fronds praising.
I hear the rush of water
but come upon falls
of honey—yellow, gold, amber, red—
that pours into a river of milk.
At the base of the falls
a woman sits in a birch bark canoe.
She waves at me.
It’s my mother.

—Sandra Heska King

As the flute should be patient and polish a sonnet, I’ll be patient and polish this dare. But please, don’t make me dream alone. Join me in this challenge. Let’s go together, and let’s be kind.

Photo by Omer Unlu, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by Sandra Heska King.

Browse other Poetry Dare adventures

Read a Poem a Day

Poetry Dare

Could you use a little dreamy inspiration? Join Sandra in this Poetry Dare. Read a little Darwish each day and share your own dream poems in the comments.

Get your copy of The Butterfly’s Burden

  • Author
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Sandra Heska King
Sandra Heska King
I’m a Michigan girl who left a 150-year-old family farmhouse on 60 acres to build a hummingbird-sized empty nest in Florida, right next to the Everglades. I thrive on a good dare and believe there’s no age-barrier to adventure—whether it’s kayaking with alligators, biking too close to a rattlesnake, riding a rollercoaster, or committing long poems near sleepy iguanas. I take lever harp lessons; buy more books than I own shelves to put them on; drink tea, tea, and more tea; and eat M&M’s the proper way (one sweet circle at a time). I’m also thinking to paint my front door chartreuse (don’t tell the HOA).
Sandra Heska King
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Filed Under: Dream Poems, Mahmoud Darwish, poetry, Poetry Dare

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Comments

  1. Maureen says

    August 26, 2015 at 10:44 am

    I’ve been re-reading this collection. I keep all my Darwish close by.

    I think it’s difficult for many Westerners to grasp just how profoundly “country” lives in the Palestinian poets, Darwish included among others such as Taha Muhammad Ali. It’s in their DNA. It is the food they eat.

    If you imagine not being able to smell the dust, the air, the sea, the blooms in your garden – what lives! – you begin to understand how deep a loss of autobiography is suffered and yet how open Darwish remains to life. The country is lover and punisher both, beauty and ugliness, reminder that to become displaced and lose all that is “I” is akin to bidding goodbye to the love your life. In his poem “Identity Card”, Darwish uses the refrain “Write it down, / I am Arab”. Think of what it is like to not be recognized, not to be seen, to be set to wander. Even now the Palestinians live with that.

    I’m so pleased you are reading Darwish’s work, Sandra, and that you mention here the need to let go to envelope yourself in what is sensate in Darwish’s poetry, because all those things that this poet sees, hears, tastes, touches, feels are reminders of everything that is his country from which he’s so tragically dislocated. As you read, watch for shifts in his metaphors.

    Your poem has some lovely imagery, memory that is alive.

    Reply
  2. Sandra Heska King says

    August 26, 2015 at 12:48 pm

    “To be displaced is to lose all that is ‘I'”

    Oh wow, Maureen. I wish I could sit with you and have you school me in person. I feel that by reading him, I need to go back and read history and that it might rattle a lot of my preconceived ideas.

    While I was waiting for this collection, I also ordered “In the Presence of Absence.” I haven’t read much past the introduction, but the translator writes it’s one of the most beautiful books he’s ever read in Arabic–a self-elegy and poetography.

    Thank you for always being so encouraging.

    Reply
  3. L. L. Barkat says

    August 26, 2015 at 3:07 pm

    What an exquisite introduction to this dare (and Darwish!).

    And I laughed about what Glynn Young would not say. It is actually the perfect descriptor for Darwish’s poetry 🙂

    Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      August 26, 2015 at 4:37 pm

      😀 😀

      And I told Glynn his post had become legendary.

      Reply
  4. Megan Willome says

    August 27, 2015 at 9:12 am

    Sandy, I read your post last night and saved it to come back to this morning. I spent some time writing out the quotes from Darwish that you mentioned and journaling through them. I’m especially moved by the lines from “I Waited for No One.” So, thank you for daring so that I might dare a little too.

    And I loved where your poem went. It took me on a journey.

    P.S. Kudos to whoever picked that photo!

    Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      August 27, 2015 at 9:44 am

      So many of his lines grab me by the throat. (Is that another way of saying “breathless?”)

      And that you would dare because I did makes me feel more brave. I love being on the journey with you.

      P.S. I’m guessing LW picked the photo. It couldn’t be more perfect.

      Reply
  5. SimplyDarlene says

    August 27, 2015 at 1:26 pm

    Look how poetry already seeps through you, Sandra. In addition to your titled prose –

    “His words seem layered and lush like a coconut dream cake.”

    BeautyFull.

    Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      August 27, 2015 at 3:04 pm

      Awww… thanks. Hmmm… maybe instead of “seem,” I should have said “are.” Cuz they are. 🙂

      Reply
  6. Diana Trautwein says

    August 27, 2015 at 6:53 pm

    Lovely in every way I can think of, Sandy. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      August 27, 2015 at 7:41 pm

      Thanks, Diana. I can’t take all the credit. LW helped me pretty this piece up. 🙂

      Reply
      • Will Willingham says

        August 27, 2015 at 9:59 pm

        It should be noted that every bit of this piece was Sandra’s. I just got a few little things out of the way so you could see it. The words and images are hers. And lovely, at that. 🙂

        Reply
        • Sandra Heska King says

          August 28, 2015 at 4:18 pm

          Awww… thanks, LW. 😀

          Reply
  7. michelle ortega says

    August 29, 2015 at 9:13 am

    Wow, Sandy, this dare IS a doozy, but you’ve met it brilliantly at the front door! I will endeavor to write a dream poem, too, along with you.

    Reply
  8. Sandra Heska King says

    August 29, 2015 at 9:50 am

    Awesomesauce. (That word’s been added to the Oxford online dictionary.) Share it here?

    Reply
  9. Lexanne Leonard says

    August 29, 2015 at 11:23 am

    I was so moved by this, I ordered The Butterfly’s Burden. It just arrived. Beautiful. Thank you for opening my eyes to this poet.

    Reply
    • Sandra Heska King says

      August 29, 2015 at 2:47 pm

      There aren’t enough words to describe his words, are there, Lexanne? I hope you’ll share some of your favorite lines and a dream poem or two.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Dreaming with Darwish and Sandra Heska King says:
    August 30, 2015 at 7:09 am

    […] at Tweetspeak Poetry, Sandra Heska King has accepted a poetry dare. She’s reading a poem a day from Mahmoud Darwish’s “The Butterfly’s […]

    Reply
  2. Poetry Dare: Dreaming with Darwish (Part 2) - says:
    September 9, 2015 at 8:01 am

    […] Read the first dispatch from Sandra’s Darwish Poetry Dare […]

    Reply
  3. When I Was Not a Writer And My Words Were Poo - Sandra Heska King says:
    September 23, 2015 at 8:38 am

    […] my response to an assignment for the “The Writing Life,”  a workshop I took through Tweetspeak Poetry two years ago with Ann Kroeker and Charity Singleton […]

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  4. A Random Act of Poetry for #raopoetryday - Sandra Heska King says:
    October 7, 2015 at 1:41 pm

    […] was originally posted four years ago yesterday in response to a Random Act of Poetry prompt from Tweetspeak Poetry. I’m reposting it now (with only a couple edits to the first part) to celebrate Random Acts […]

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  5. Persecuted Poets: Hearing the Voices Beyond Our Borders - says:
    November 30, 2016 at 8:00 am

    […] what we love, because all that will be . . . was [. . . .] — from The Horse Fell Off the Poem in The Butterfly’s Burden (tr. Fady […]

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  6. Pandemic Journal: An Entry on Where We Go from Here | says:
    June 19, 2020 at 7:51 am

    […] podcast featured a poem titled And We Love Life by Mahmoud Darwish, whose work has been part of a Tweetspeak dare. The poem begins “And we love life, if we find a way to it.” The line is repeated three more […]

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