Nathalie Handal: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Awón/Sin

 

We will tell each other that

we can't choose

between one country and another,

we will tell each other

that we will kill

even if we don't want to,

we will regret saying it

and we will start

all over again.

Your pain will hang inside mine,

mine inside yours, you will

comb my hair, and I will comb yours.

You will press your ears against my wall,

I will press mine against your body,

we will love and inspect,

we will try and live

with what follows us—

but no one can change this:

we are unable to tear

our eyes from each other.

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Nathalie Handal has been described as a “contemporary Orpheus.” She has lived in four continents, is the author of 10 award-winning books, translated in over 15 languages, including Life in a Country Album, winner of the Palestine Book Award, and The Republics, lauded as “one of the most inventive books by one of today’s most diverse writers,” and winner of the Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing and the Arab American Book Award. Handal is the recipient of awards from the PEN Foundation, Lannan Foundation, Fondazione di Venezia, Centro Andaluz de las Letras, and Africa Institute, among others. She is professor at New York University-AD, and writes a column, “The City and the Writer” for Words without Borders.  [Author photo by Andrea Salerno.]

“Awon / Sin”: Aramaic. Awon appears frequently throughout the Old Testament, and in parallel with other words related to sin, such as chatta'th and pesha’.

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       Tahia Halim (1919-2003), Four Women Braiding Each Other’s Hair. Halim was an Egyptian painter celebrated for her poetic and folkloric works.

Comments

[Grace Cavalieri]

Yes.This says = in the most elegant way= even if terrible election results happen, no one can touch the consciousness.

[Clarinda Harriss]

Thanks to both of you: author of this poem and him who brought it to us

[Bill Nevins]

Remarkably clear and yet intriguing poem. Brava to the author and thanks, Terence!

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for the comment, Clarinda.

[Don Berger]

This poem's cadence,its pulse, helps float it urgently into the listener's ear and into the air, both at once, and the word "tear" at the end is the breaking point, a sharp interesting surprise where the the word takes over in full, beyond the passage of gestures, thoughts, and feelings that we follow and accept up to that point. Glad this poem's here--thank you Terence!

[Sr. Leslie]

Oh, what a poem…yes, we will tell each other…we will tell each other and hope that will relieve our pain in knowing we are alll guilty….but only love…Love will and we will start all over again…it reminds me of an old monk’s tale…when asked, “what do you do?” In a monastery, he replies, “ we fall and we get up again…”…and it comes going on like this…I will definitely be checking her poetry out…thank you Terence and thank you Nathalie…

[Terence Winch]

Prof. Berger: Thanks for that comment!

[Terence Winch]

Bill: thanks for the comment.

[Terence Winch]

Leslie---thanks, as always, for the great response.

[Eileen Reich]

Love this beautiful and sad poem. The artwork is amazing.

[KC Trommer]

Thank you for your poem, Nathalie: "Your pain will hang inside mine,/mine inside yours".

[David Beaudouin]

The urgent dualities that haunt this poem remind me of two grieving planets in opposite orbits, endlessly circling a dark star. Thanks so much, Nathalie and Terence.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for the comment, David.